I recently (Jan 2017) switched my iphones (3 iPhones) to gophone service.

iMessage requires data to work.  If you chose a Gophone plan without data, it would not work.  

 

Well that bit of information wasn’t shared at the time of changing the service. The world wouldn’t have stop if we couldn’t use iMessage, however it would have changed our decision. The second issue is the responsiveness of the AT&T text service. Recently my wife had to traffic back to CT and when she reached the Airport we Texted a friend re: her arrival. The message appeared hours later, long after our friend had picked her up. The type of unreliability is totally unacceptable especially when we were use to iMessage and the responsiveness of Apple’s service (i understand that data is necessary), that said, when someone is changing service from a full service using an iPhone to Gophone this information should be immediately shared with the customer. I personally went through many customer service calls, finally a very share service representative informed me that the preferences on the iPhone need to be changed. After changing the preferences, of course the texting worked; but the full features we were used to using went away. When we are in a wi-fi area … we must change the preferences. The GoPhone service marketing needs some clarification. Unfortunately we had to learn the hard way and will be changing.

@tincan

iMessage is an Apple feature.  If you own an iPhone you should know how it works.  

The $30 plan comes with talk and text only.  

If your wife flew into Bradley Airport, it has great ATT reception.  I live 20 minutes away, and flew out on Feb 20 and back in on Feb 28.  I had no problem contacting my son by text for a pick up.