[B1FIDO]

Multimedia "texts" are actually MMS. In fact, if you send more than 160 characters, those are also MMS because it's an extension of the SMS standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Messaging_Service

It is not unusual for there to be hosting or intermediate storage of images and other files, and from the phone you may tap a link or something to download/access that file, instead of having it automatically download and appear immediately, due to bandwidth and resource constraints.

[WesolyKubeczek]

Aren’t SMS that are over 160 characters being concatenated? There used to be a standard for that.

[AnssiH]

Generally yes.

I guess a phone/app could exist that does convert to MMS instead, though, since the app can make that decision.