FarjadAI · Mentorship · Coaching
Report 04Telecom9 min read

The Hidden Cost of iMessage on an Iranian Phone Bill A fact-check

A fact-check of claims that went round Twitter and Telegram — and of the technical explanation that travelled with them — against Apple's own documentation, encyclopaedic sources and peer-reviewed papers.

The verdict in four lines

  1. True

    The cost is real. To activate iMessage and FaceTime with a phone number, an iPhone sends a hidden international text message to Apple, and Apple itself says the operator may charge for it.

  2. The real cause

    If activation of a +98 number fails, the phone tries again and again — and every try is one international SMS.

  3. False

    The operator does not count iMessage messages one by one and bill them as texts. The messages themselves travel over data, end-to-end encrypted.

  4. The fix

    Remove the phone number from iMessage and FaceTime (keep the Apple ID email), and block international SMS with the operator. Turning off “Send as Text Message” alone is not enough.

An iPhone 16 Pro Max held in one hand, screen lit
The text message leaves the phone before the owner has opened Messages at all.Image credit: メイド理世 (resized) · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

1hidden text message

per activation attempt — sent to an Apple number abroad, and sent again every time activation fails

Report dated 11 October 2026. Operator tariffs and Apple's behaviour can change; every figure carries its source.

The mechanism

Two completely separate paths

Most of the confusion comes from treating two different paths as one. The first only registers your number, and it goes over the SMS network. The second carries the messages themselves, and it goes over the internet.

Scroll, and watch each path draw itself in.

Path 1 · Registering the number (SMS)

  1. 01Your iPhoneSIM +98
  2. 02Operator's SMS centreSMSC · MCI
  3. 03International gatewaySS7 / MAP
  4. 04Apple's number abroad+44 · per user reports

Billable as an international SMS · the SMS content is not end-to-end encrypted

Path 2 · Sending messages and calls (data)

  1. 01Your iPhoneiMessage / FaceTime
  2. 02Operator's data coreP-GW / UPF · DPI
  3. 03The internetTLS · TCP 5223/443
  4. 04Apple's serversAPNs · 17.0.0.0/8

Only data volume is counted · content is end-to-end encrypted

The registration path is SMS and it costs money; the message path is data. The addresses and ports come from Apple's guide for network administrators, and the roles of APNs and IDS from Apple's security guide. Apple does not publish where the activation SMS goes; users and several carriers report a UK (+44) number.

Why the bill climbs

The retry loop

Apple's own support page says: “you need SMS messaging to activate your phone number with iMessage and FaceTime” and “depending on your carrier, you might be charged for this SMS” — and tells you to make sure you can send international SMS. The same page lists errors such as “Waiting for activation” and says the device “automatically attempts to verify your phone number”. How often it retries, Apple does not say.

0SMS
  1. 1iMessage / FaceTime switched on with a phone number
  2. 2Hidden SMS sent to Apple
  3. 3Activation fails — “Waiting for activation”
  4. 4Try again = another SMS

    5. Every turn of this loop is one international text message. Apple does not document the retry interval. Users report the texts repeating daily on carriers Apple does not partner with (Apple Community, 2020), and on every restart (iFixit, 2018). Those are user reports, not official documents.

One thing that has to stay separate

Whether Apple accepts +98 numbers for iMessage at all is neither confirmed nor denied in any official Apple source I found. So “activation fails in Iran” is a reasonable hypothesis that fits the pattern of reports — not an established fact. What is documented is the charge itself: MCI's own international-services page names iMessage, FaceTime and Xiaomi Cloud as the apps that “may send numerous international text messages without the subscriber's knowledge and increase the bill”, and the Iranian press reported operators tracing exactly these charges to iMessage and FaceTime back in 2017.

Try it

How a bill like this grows

The tweets quoted 167 and 447 rial per message. MCI's own tariff page, checked on 11 October 2026, lists 45,000 toman — 450,000 rial — for one SMS to a UK mobile. Set your own: how often the phone retries, for how many days, at which rate.

Text messages sent3
On the bill135,000toman

At this rate, the 100,000 toman in the tweet is about 2 messages.

A simple model: retries × days × tariff. Real retry intervals are not documented by Apple and vary with signal and settings. The point is the shape of the number, not a prediction of your bill.

The tweet's per-message figures do not match the official tariff

The author of the thread said “nearly 100,000 toman” and also “90 text messages”, and quoted 167 and 447 rial per message. MCI's official rate for an SMS to a UK mobile is 45,000 toman. Simple arithmetic:

The tweet's own figures100,000 ÷ 90 ≈ 1,111 toman eachmatches neither 167 nor 447 rial
At 447 rial (the second tweet)90 × 447 = 40,230 IRR≈ 4,023 toman, not 100,000
At MCI's official 45,000 toman100,000 ÷ 45,000 ≈ 2.2two or three messages

The bill is plausible; the per-message figures circulating with it are not. At the official rate, 100,000 toman is two or three activation attempts, not ninety — and a phone that keeps retrying can cost far more than the tweet feared.

Claim by claim

Eight claims, checked

Tap a card for the verdict and the source.

What the operator sees

Visibility to the operator

Built from Apple's documented architecture and the traffic-classification literature. The levels are qualitative, not measured. Switch between an iMessage and an ordinary SMS and watch the last rows change.

  1. Which subscriber is connectedMSISDN / IMSI ↔ IP
    Full
    The operator ties every data session to a SIM; that is the basis of usage accounting.
  2. A connection to Apple's serversdst 17.0.0.0/8 · port 5223
    High
    Apple itself publishes the IP block and ports for network administrators.
  3. Volume and timing of trafficflow metadata
    High
    Packet sizes, timing and duration of a flow are visible in any case.
  4. iMessage, or another Apple service?service classification
    Medium
    APNs is shared between several Apple services; telling them apart needs pattern analysis.
  5. The recipient's number or Apple IDrecipient identity
    Low
    The recipient's address is inside the encrypted traffic to Apple's server, not in a packet header.
  6. The text of the messagemessage content
    None (from the network)
    End-to-end encrypted for iMessage. Spyware on the phone or an unencrypted backup are a separate matter. An SMS passes through and is stored at the operator's SMS centre, with no end-to-end encryption.

The fix

The right fix, in order

Five steps. Tick them off as you go.

0 of 5 done

  1. Remove the number from iMessage

    Settings › Apps › Messages › Send & Receive

    Untick the +98 number and keep only the Apple ID email. Apple names email as the official alternative.

    iMessage
    Send & Receive
    • name@icloud.com

    The number is ticked: activation SMS can still be sent.

    Tap the number to see what changes.

  2. Do the same for FaceTime

    Settings › Apps › FaceTime › You Can Be Reached By

    Remove the number, or switch FaceTime off.

  3. Switch off fallback to SMS

    Settings › Apps › Messages › Send as Text Message

    This stops a failed message from quietly becoming a paid text. It does not touch the activation SMS, which is why the first two steps come first.

  4. Block international SMS with the operator

    My MCI app › Services

    The strongest layer. Even if the phone retries, no message leaves and nothing is billed.

  5. Check the itemised bill

    Look for repeated texts to one fixed foreign number. That pattern is the signature of the activation loop.

A nano-SIM card resting on a fingertip
The SIM, not the app, is what the operator bills. Every activation attempt is one international SMS on it.Image credit: Subhrajyoti07 (resized) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

The first technical answer

What the technical answer got right, and what it missed

A technical explanation circulated alongside the thread, and it is worth reviewing on its own: it is a good example of an answer that is correct about the protocols and still misses the point.

What it got right

  • The distinction between content, metadata and traffic classification is correct.
  • Its explanation of DPI, SNI, flow analysis and the effect of a VPN is accurate; SNI is sent in the clear by default.
  • “Content security is not the same as anonymity” is the right conclusion.

What was wrong or missing

  • It took a sentence about “which number uses which service” to mean identifying the recipient, and “corrected” it. The original was right.
  • It accepted the “hiding from surveillance” framing without checking. The group's question was about cost.
  • In a long analysis of DPI it never mentioned the activation SMS — the one thing that explains the whole story.
  • Its suggested text for the group did not say how to avoid the charge.

Ready to post

The short version, for the group

If you want to settle it in a chat without the diagrams.

The charges are real, but they have nothing to do with iMessage being read.

To activate iMessage and FaceTime with a phone number, the iPhone sends a hidden text message to an Apple number abroad. If activation fails, the phone tries again and again, and the operator bills each try as an international SMS. The iMessages themselves travel over data and are not billed separately.

The fix:
1. Settings › Messages › Send & Receive: remove the number (keep the Apple ID email)
2. Settings › FaceTime: the same
3. Turn off Send as Text Message
4. Block international SMS with the operator

Method and sources

How this was put together

  • Dated 11 October 2026. The 167 and 447 rial figures are the tweets' own. MCI's official rate for an SMS to a UK mobile, 45,000 toman, was read from the tariff tool on mci.ir/international-call the same day; rates to other countries differ.
  • Whether Apple accepts +98 numbers for iMessage activation was not confirmed or denied by any official source found. The report treats a failing activation as a hypothesis.
  • The forum threads cited are user reports and carry less weight than Apple's documents. Apple does not publish the destination of the activation SMS or how often it is retried.
  • The visibility levels are drawn from the documented architecture, not measured.
  • This is analysis for general readers. It is not advice from the operator or from Apple, and settings may differ by iOS version.

Sources

  1. AApple Support · If you can't turn on or sign in to iMessage or FaceTime on your iPhone (119859)
  2. AApple Support · If you can't send or receive messages on your iPhone or iPad — “Send as Text Message” (118433)
  3. AApple Support · Use Apple products on enterprise networks — APNs hosts, ports and 17.0.0.0/8 (101555)
  4. AApple Platform Security · iMessage security overview (APNs, IDS, end-to-end encryption)
  5. AApple Platform Security · FaceTime security (relay servers, end-to-end encryption)
  6. AMCI (Hamrah-e Aval) · International calls and SMS — tariff tool and the warning that names iMessage, FaceTime and Xiaomi Cloud
  7. ARFC 9849 · TLS Encrypted Client Hello
  8. BMashregh News · Services that raise bills or drain credit — operators trace charges to iMessage and FaceTime (13 Aug 2017)
  9. BDigikala Mag · If you have an iPhone, watch your bill (Dec 2015)
  10. CApple Community · “Your carrier may charge for SMS messages used to activate iMessage” (2020, user reports)
  11. CiFixit Answers · Carrier charges for the activation SMS on every restart (2018, user reports)
The Hidden Cost of iMessage on an Iranian Phone Bill | Farjad