When you wake up Friday morning, don’t expect to see MMS working on your iPhone immediately as AT&T will be systematically activating groups throughout the day, starting at 10 AM Eastern time. Also don’t forget that to enable MMS on your iPhone you must first connect to iTunes and download and install an updated carrier file.
That is, if AT&T’s network holds up as millions of iPhone users rush to test the new service. That very thought has AT&T feeling extremely nervous right about now, according to MacRumors:
“early testing has been a little rocky, with AT&T seeing a fairly significant test outage yesterday that has them rushing to beef up their MMSC messaging servers. Estimates among those working on the project are that traffic on AT&T’s wireless network will be about 40% higher all day on Friday as iPhone users fire pictures and video at one another.”
Not that any of you AT&T customers really need the reminder. Regardless, the wait is almost over folks, AT&T is finally flipping the MMS switch for all of their iPhone customers this Friday, September 25th.
Sure, this day marked in your calendars but would any of you like to take bets on whether or not the network will buckle when you have every single iPhone owner sending picture after picture all day long? Don’t be too upset when the person you are sending the image to tells you they have not gotten it yet. That’s more than likely to happen unless AT&T really used this extra time wisely and beefed up their network like they claimed in preparation for the flood gates they are about to open…
Still, according to some of our readers, it seems as if AT&T is currently sending out text messages reminding you of this day that so many of you cherish.
“Picture &video message(MMS) will be available for iphone on 9/25. While we prepare your account for MMS capability, the current ” view my message” experience will be turned off but your ability to send and receive text messages will not be affected.”
Some readers are telling us they can already access MMS on AT&T. This has been happening for a while, of course. Justin was able to use MMS during the 3.1 beta, after all. We figured AT&T was testing the system. Now, AT&T officially has until the promised September 25 drop date to get all iPhone users up and running, however, it appears more and more people are gaining access to MMS and it’s not going away (at least yet).
So, in an effort to find out just how widespread this early MMS access is, we’re running the poll above, and if you are getting MMS already, asking you to let us know where, and for how long in the comments below.
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Our first thread of the day includes a poll and comes to us from cobra302 – Glass up or down? Are you one of the brave few who actually set their iPhone face down?
So you are having an issue with your iPhone and need some help? Perhaps you have some time to kill and feel like helping others with their iPhone issues? If you answered yes to either of these questions then please stop by and visit our dedicated iPhone Help forum.
WhenWillApple reports that AT&T MMS is already working for them in Florida under iPhone 3.1 Beta 3. and while it might just be another random network test, could it also be a sign of what’s to come?
Anyone else rocking AT&T MMS on iPhone 3.1 Beta 3? Say where and when in the comments!
Most AT&T iPhone owners have been waiting for any word from their beloved carrier regarding the activation of MMS and as it turns out, AT&T just notified us personally to make sure we pass on the good word that MMS will be available on the iPhone on September 25th.
The date is September 25th, which does indeed fall a few days past the official end of summer. It was important to give our customers a positive experience from day one. We support more iPhone customers than any other carrier in the world so we took the time necessary to make sure our network is ready to handle what we expect will be a record volume of MMS traffic. We truly appreciate our customers’ patience and hope they’ll understand our desire to get it right from the start.
The email went on to also make a point that this indeed will be a software update that iPhone owners will need to download via iTunes. Perhaps the release date for iPhone OS 3.1?
Has AT&T been delaying the US launch of iPhone 3.0’s MMS and tethering services due to concerns about their network being able to handle it? Um, yeah, that would have been our guess… The New York Times, however, states it as fact:
[AT&T] has also delayed bandwidth-heavy features like multimedia messaging, or text messages containing pictures, audio or video. It is also postponing “tethering,” which allows the iPhone to share its Internet connection with a computer, a standard feature on many rival smartphones. AT&T says it has no intention of capping how much data iPhone owners use.
How big is the concern? AT&T claims they’ve diverted $18 billion to upgrade and expand their 3G network to handle the load, but that getting local approval to build towers takes time, as does upgrading existing infrastructure.
Analysts quoted seem to agree with TiPb readers that AT&T may just have been hit first and hardest by the iPhone, but other networks will face the same problem if/when they start to see iPhone class devices hitting their towers in the same numbers.
So, is AT&T doing the right thing delaying MMS and tethering until, you know, they’ll actually work, or do you just want your features and want them now? Or do you just not buy this whole “data usage conspiracy” at all?
The minute our iPhone calendars turned from August 31 to September 1, TiPb’s email box started getting many colorful variations of “Summer is over, where’s our [redacted redacted redacted... redacted!] MMS and tethering!
While Apple showed off the front-end for MMS and tethering back in March, released it along with iPhone 3.0 in June, and most of the rest of the world has been enjoying it ever since, AT&T is a notable, and increasingly infuriating exception. Late summer (and when is that exactly?), and that it will be no extra charge, is all they’ve said. And whether you personally would use MMS or not, right now you don’t even have that choice.
We’ve heard all the excuses, from AT&T’s network can barely handle the iPhone as-is, and MMS and especially tethering would bring it, crashing and burning, to its knees, to a rumor that AT&T had to manually turn on MMS for every single iPhone account on their system. We’ve also heard it may be announced as part of Apple’s September 9th event. That would be very late summer indeed.
But that’s all we’ve heard. There’s been no status update from AT&T that we can find, no attempt to keep their users in the loop, no expression of sympathy for the frustration their users are voicing (or emailing us!). AT&T is being almost Apple-esque in their lack of communications and for a company that’s in the communications business — and is charging high monthly rates to its consumers — that’s just not good enough.
Apple and AT&T are being sued in Louisiana over the lack of MMS available for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS users running iPhone 3.0 software. Now, it’s gotten to the point where TiPb doesn’t pay too much attention to Apple lawsuits anymore just because they’re so frequent we’d need to get the blog roomier pants, and while we’re not lawyers and can’t comment as to the merits of this case, it’s yet another (painful) reminder that AT&T has dropped the ball when it comes to MMS on the iPhone and especially when it comes to communicating what’s happening — and keeping updated — their long suffering user base.
Apple, says the filings, has revealed that AT&T has never upgraded its towers so as to support MMS functionality. “The only excuse offered by AT&T and Apple is a mouseprint disclaimer on the website, in barely readable font, which reads ‘MMS Support from AT&T coming in late summer’”.
That’s the part where it kind of falls down for us, however. Now, I’m not on AT&T, but several of our readers are and as part of beta tests and carrier tests, some of them have indeed sent MMS messages on AT&T, and AT&T’s website seems to show it working for other phones, so… huh?
Is this once again an absurd claim distracting from the real issue — that summer grows later and later, and there’s still no word on iPhone MMS from AT&T? What are they waiting for, a Special Music Event?!
Apple announced that iPhone 3.0 would include MMS functionality way back on March 17 at the Sneak Peak Event. At WWDC 2009 Apple announced MMS would be available by launch day, June 19, to iPhone users all over the world — except on AT&T.
Since then AT&T, already enjoying the disdain accredited to all modern, oligopolistic carriers, has taken an even worse beaten than usual in the arena of public perception. Either they were incapable of supporting the sheer number of iPhones they exclusively locked down on their network, or they were incompetent in handling the roll out in a timely manner. Even Apple’s VP of iPhone Software, Scott Forstall, gave AT&T their equivalent of the stank-eye during his WWDC keynote segment. “Late summer” is all we’ve heard in terms of schedule, and the summer… it grows late.
But here’s the thing we’re curious about: let’s say AT&T did launch MMS back on June 19 like the rest of the world, or let’s say they launched it today even — would you really use it? How many and how much? What kind of an onslaught is AT&T desperate to delay looking at here?
