AT&T Reminder: No Extra Charge for iPhone MMS
TiPb is constantly receiving the big question regarding AT&T and MMS – will there be an extra charge for it? The answer is a simple no. The better question would be – when will we actually see it?
Later this summer, as part of the 3.0 software, AT&T will make multimedia messaging (MMS) available at no extra cost to customers with a text messaging bundle.
Now “later this summer” can literally mean June 19th for all we know. TiPb thinks AT&T faithful will see MMS sooner than you may think.
More AT&T related questions can be answered via this AT&T FAQ.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Just as a reminder to all O2 Customers, MMS will use 4 of your inclusive texts) So you can all have either 500 SMS or 125 MMS, or any mix of the two
(Thats based on the most popular consumer tariffs)
June 15th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I don’t think it will be too long before it’s up and going.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:37 am
I think it will be about 3 months until we are able to use MMS on AT&T.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:46 am
I still can not believe it took AT&T this long to finish MMS for the IPhone anyway this is one of the best feature for the 3.0 software I hope it’s sooner rather than later we get MMS from AT&T.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:46 am
shouts for joy With MMS coming, I now longer have to remember 6 different MMS addresses to e-mail pictures to my friends phones. And because I’m on an unlimited texts (i text a lot :]) plan, i shouldn’t see a price increase. Finally AT&T doesn’t slip something in my drink.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:48 am
while i hope that mms is sooner than later, knowing att Later this summer might mean december
June 15th, 2009 at 11:58 am
the dumb part is i think i would still email pics anyways. I have pre-set 555-5555@vtext.com etc etc. for all my contacts i would sent pics to. I still cant believe we have to pay for texts on top of a $30 data plan! If you have an IM client on the iphone with push then just use an AOL account and add the persons phone number = same as text, you can send images also. I use beejive with AOL just for that reason.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
On Rogers there is no unlimited texting plan unfortunately, I have a 2,500txt thing that came in a $15 value pack with tons of other things needed on iPhone (visual voicemail, caller ID, etc.). However, this does not include MMS! Luckily I have My5 which is unlimited contact with any 5 contacts in any way (SMS, MMS, Call, Video Call).. And there’s only about 5 people I’d think of sending pics to.
I hope we don’t get charged to receive files because on iPhone there is no warnings (I’ve tested it). In case anyone is wondering it plays audio files in a weird player that looks like the video player (the seeker is really large and long and you could fit thumbnails in the progress bar). And it calls audio AND video files “media”… >_> It’s kinda weird.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
If they would turn it on in time for Comic-Con, I would be satisfied.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
If they would charged extra for it I would have left after my contract, Iphone be damned, not because its that important but I just ain’t taking no more **** from AT&T
June 15th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Yeah given that most of us spend 45-50 for data and text messaging, it most certainly should be included along with tethering if we chose to use it, at no extra cost. They got us right where they want us.
I use wifi for the majority of my data I would rarely tether and it would still never reach 1 gig of the 5 gig I pay 30 dollars a month for.
How can metro pcs afford to give customers unlimited everything for 50 dollars a month and still make a profit. Yet we get so much less from at&t for double the money even tho they have way more subscribers. Are their cost higher or are they just robbing us because they can and we’ll happily pay.
Seems like 78.2 million subscribers would get us better rates over 6.1 million. That’s almost a third of the country.
I hate that I love my iphone. Signs.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I think we’ll see it pretty soon too. i could care less how fast we get tethering though. I’m not gonna use it plus it calls for its OWN plan. Unless AT&T doesn’t charge for that either but I don’t see that happening.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
They could afford to compete with Metro but they don’t want to because they like the higher profit margins. Even with the so called subsidy and assuming the full price of the iphone is $600 it would only cost you 17 a month over the course of 2 years (400 divided over 24 mos) in addition to the 200 dollar up front cost for AT&T to get its money back for the phone and still charge you for services. Zer01 mobile would make a killing if they could subsidize the iphone this way along with the 70 dollar a month unlimited phone, data and text. Total per month cost would be roughly 87 dollars.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Something I noticed when signing up for new service with a 3GS (Just switched since my Verizon contract is about to expire) and In addition to the “Opt-out TXT message” which I remember was present when looking at an iphone a few months ago, there was also an option to “Opt-out MMS message” which I made sure not to select. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was something that was selected by default with older iphones.
My guess is that since AT&T obviously already supports MMS messages on every other phone, the “late summer” is really just so they can go through and manually remove “opt-out MMS” from existing customers.
I wouldn’t be surprised if when I receive my phone on the 19th or 20th if MMS is working from the get-go. I am hopeful, anyway.
If this is the case, I would imagine you could also call customer service yourself if you’re an existing customer and get its removal expedited a little.
I guess we’ll see on the 19th.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
@APPCRITICal:
MMS uses the same signaling channel that SMS uses. This channel is the same Paging channel that phones use to receive calls, and record billing info. (Handsets wake up periodically and listen to this channel to see if a call is coming in. Periodically means every 4.615 milliseconds to be perfectly pedantic. The handset enters low power sleep the rest of the time.).
Messages on this channel are limited to about 160 bytes, and larger MMSs get broken up into many SMSs which is why you get charged that way. (I’m pretty sure you know this already).
Lots of traffic on this channel is alleged to interfere with call setup (although ATT seems to be the only carrier whining about this). These messages are said keep that signaling channel so busy they prevent call setup. But one SMS goes in a single packet so this is really short duration, and it the network is so loaded it can’t handle that its probably so overloaded as to be unusable anyway.
SMS traffic is a larger part of cell traffic than many people realize. I can see why the carriers wanted to monetize this. But 20 cents for 160 bytes has to be the most expensive bandwidth anyone ever buys.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
@Calavera302:
Did you mean to say that they would let you Opt out of SMS but separately opt in to MMS?
I would not have thought that possible.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
My brother is a developer and has tested 3.0 and his MMS worked fine.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
@icebike
When going through the signup procedure a few weeks ago (Just to see how much it would cost me) there was an option to “opt-out TXT message” on the “features” page. I assume this is for people who don’t pay for a text plan and don’t want to pay per text.
When I actually signed up 5 days ago, the option to “opt-out TXT” was still there, but also present was an “opt-out MMS” that could be selected independently. Presumably, it would be possible to opt out of txt messaging but still be able to send and receive MMS messages.
Since I am getting a text plan, I did not choose to opt out of either, so I’m assuming that both will “just work” when I receive the phone.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I’m not too worried about MMS. I was browsing around the Apple website and found this:
“NOTE: The MMS Messaging setting doesn’t appear if MMS isn’t supported by your carrier.”
I wonder if the MMS setting will be there when we update on Wednesday.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Anyone know what TIME 3.0 will be out? Will it be like 12:01AM Eastern on Wednesday?
If so, that means I could get it Tuesday night at 10pm here in UT…
Anyone know?
June 15th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
so i went to mywireless using the att app on the iphone and went ahead and added the $5 txting plan (200) i then got a message from att explaining that they removed txt opt out AND MMS opt out! (im running 3.0 and its not enabled software side, tho i didn’t use a carrier hack) also i added the txt opt out manually last year because i kept getting txts from ppl… I am very curious if i could enable it software side if it would work carrier side. im just too lazy to find iTunes 8.2 (10) n stuff.. but i can wait for mms.. i lived w/o txting for a year… ok nvm i want it nao!!!
June 15th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
“TiPb thinks AT&T faithful will see MMS sooner than you may think.”
PhxBlue thinks he agrees with this.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Why Would AT&T Charge More For MMS. It’s Included As Part of Texting On All Other AT&T Plans. Also iPhone Owners Already Have Data, so If It Was Put On Data, It Wouldn’t Matter There Either.
Q. Isn’t AT&T and T-Mobile The Only Two Major Carriers That Have MMS Included In Text Messaging Plans. My Friends Are On Sprint and They Say Sprint Don’t Cover MMS W/ Their Texts.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
I don’t see why they don’t proxy MMS over the data connection for the iPhone.
I can’t wait to here more details about tethering though. I well never use MMS anyways.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
FAIL AT&T, major FAIL. You are going to lose about 13 million customers once Verizon gets a hold of the iPhone. You are single-handedly retarding the iPhone and its capabilities because your network sucks balls. BOO!
June 15th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I was told by my AT&T Business CSR that they would enable it on the 17th for all users. I had called trying to get them to enable it for me as a “Developer” and their tech guys wouldn’t do it and said it would be live June 17th as part of the new release.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
@Ryan Really? Can we trust you with that as a source?
June 15th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Just relaying what they told me. Now if the rep and her internal tech lied to me…..that I cannot comment on.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
I’m thinking if this IS the case, maybe they decided some overtime spent on their techs to get the system up in time was better than the tons of calls from users saying “How do I send MMS, that’s a feature on this new update from Apple, right?”
June 15th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
@Ryan As a previous CSR myself for an unrelated company. I can say that we told white lies to customers all the time (unfortunately), so hopefully this person wasn’t just saying that to get you off the phone!
Guess we will see on Wednesday! Interesting to know none-the-less! Thanks!
June 15th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
When I called to see if I could get MMS unblocked I was told they could not do it until the end of summer maybe July. She said I shouldn’t believe everything I read in blogs because people don’t always give out all or the right information. I think they are getting tired of iphone customers calling them asking for MMS. Call more maybe if will speed them up.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
I didn’t read it on this one, it was another
June 15th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Those that cry fail regarding AT&T fail at understanding that there are 3 other carriers.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
“Literally?” No. In fact, June 19th doesn’t qualify as Summer. That doesn’t happen until the 21st. So, literally, it could be as late as September 21st.
June 15th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
If you reckon it from Summer Solstice then its not yet Summer, if you reckon it from Memorial to Labor Day then it is Summer
.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
MMS is awesome! It works so beautifully as you can even copy and paste a picture into the window in addition to selecting the photo via the camera icon. And the thumbnail of it in the Messages screen is so stylish and… oh, I’m sorry… most of you all don’t have it because it’s not official, yet. Sorry…
June 15th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
MMS is cool, but i dont really use it. But i still cant wait to just have it on my Brand New Iphone 3G s, just sitting there……hahaha but Yea i cant wait when i see the UPS guy at my work delivering my iphone…
June 16th, 2009 at 3:58 am
this is killing me since i still have a 2g >.<
June 16th, 2009 at 4:41 am
@icebike
I don’t know how it works in the US, but in the UK MMS messages are downloaded via your internet connection, not the standard SMS protocol. Essentially you are sent a coded SMS which tells the phone to dial upto the server and download your picture or video. Thats how ours work.
I don’t think its charged that way because it actually uses 4 texts, thats just O2’s way of keeping the billing simple.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:28 am
Do people not realize that it’s still Spring? Summer doesn’t start for another week, AT&T said late Summer, not late spring, so expect it in late September, no earlier, they won’t do it any faster than they have to.
I suggest Apple find another carrier ASAP.
AT&T is still getting all our money, they could care less about MMS, the longer they hold off the less money they have to spend right now.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:43 am
@Truth. You aren’t reading any of the posts very well. I am an Apple guy through and through but AT&T is demolishing an excellent product with their inability to keep up with the devices evolution. I am praying that Apple goes with another carrier because I am sure millions would agree that AT&T sucks. AT&T’s lack of MMS and tethering off the release of 3.0 should be the straw that breaks Apple’s patience.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
@AJ You hit the nail on the head… Kudos.
July 27th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
It’s past june 19th and im getting impatient. where is my mms???
July 28th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
what is the icon on the top right hand corner of the screen of the iphone? the bar thats 3/4 green and 1/4 black (on the left of the battery)
July 31st, 2009 at 4:30 pm
AT&T states it will not be available until Summer of 2010.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:35 am
its august, still no mms.
what is co nsidered late summer???
and where did att state that it will not be available until summer 2010??? i can’t find that anywhere
August 13th, 2009 at 2:35 am
You people kill me! You think ATT has something to do with the mms haha it all apple baby! Apple made the phone and the rules ATT just gets to sell it! Any data plan for a smart phone is $30 no matter who the provider is. So either you can suck it up and pay for the iPhone data plan or forfiet your iPhone because it will not opperate without it says apple and ATT!
August 18th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
FIXED USA AT&T MMS Enabling 100% Easy working: http://htxt.it/eEK4