MMS Arrives For the iPhone — Will It Crash AT&T's Network?

itwbennett writes "AT&T has said it is already seeing 'record traffic during peak hours of the night' with just the users selected for testing, and so it is 'very nervous' about the spike in traffic that it expects will occur after it launched MMS service for iPhones on Friday. Of course, setting records for MMS traffic isn't that great a feat considering that 'the service in question has been out for years on other handsets and hasn't exactly taken the mobile world by storm. In 2008, MMS made up just 2.5 percent of all messages sent from phones worldwide, meaning about 97.5 percent were SMS text messages, according to ABI Research. ABI expects the MMS share to grow to just 4.5 percent by 2014.' However, the carrier's fears in one respect may have been justified, says ABI analyst Dan Shey: 'Interoperability between carriers has always been an issue, and that's why MMS usage hasn't really taken off.'"

Comments

MMS is pretty pointless after all

[sopssa]

I'm quite surprised iPhone hasn't had MMS yet. It has been on phones since like 2003.

For that matter it'll never got popular. This is partly because operators overprice MMS and because it doesn't really serve that much purpose. Yeah I could send a pic with it, but meh. Could always show them via computer or otherwise too.

'Interoperability between carriers has always been an issue, and that's why MMS usage hasn't really taken off.'"

I doubt this is really the issue. Where I live MMS has been working greatly since the beginning between operators too. But it still hasn't taken off.

Re:MMS is pretty pointless after all

[plover]

For that matter it'll never got popular. This is partly because operators overprice MMS and because it doesn't really serve that much purpose.

Well, there are a couple of things that you got wrong here. First, overpriced or not, unlimited MMS is included as a part of the data plan you have to buy from AT&T when you have an iPhone. So cost won't matter.

The other is that one reason MMS hasn't taken off is that it's been hard to use on a lot of phones. On some of them the user has to know to go into a different messaging task, or to say create some kind of special message, and do some weird stuff they've never done before. On the iPhone, they added a little camera icon to the left of the text entry box. Couldn't be easier.

Since the "barriers to entry" have now been substantially lowered, iPhone users will indeed start to use the feature more.

Re:MMS is pretty pointless after all

[smallfries]

Are you kidding me? The phone that I've had for four years is not unusual - it is a bog standard Sony Ericsson model. It's had working MMS since I got it. I wouldn't describe it as hard to use. After taking a picture with the phone one of the menu options that pops up is send via mms. It works to the phones of everyone that I know, regardless of their network: O2, Orange, Vodafone, Three...

Are you sure that MMS not taking off is not more to do with the US having appalling infrastructure for mobile phones? It seems to work well enough everywhere else in the world...

Re:MMS is pretty pointless after all

[plover]

Apple's recommendation if you can't get MMS working or don't want to upgrade is to continue to send pictures via email. It's pragmatic but not the best solution for immediate mobile to mobile picture transfers.

How much people really need an instant mobile to mobile picture transfer solution is a different question.

No.

[jafiwam]

Judging by the number of AT&T Sales-shitheels cold calling my customers and trying to confuse them deliberately, no. AT&T must have plenty of extra capacity sitting around.

They would simply prefer that users use their minutes and do things that can get them charged more money, rather than using efficient asymmetric communication methods.

Non-Open Networks

[Cytlid]

Wow if cell phone networks were open like the internet, there wouldn't be these types of problems.

Re:Just a thought

[jltnol]

Agreed. Companies today don't provide a service OR a product. They supply profits. Service and products are just the ugly, messy way of moving money from the bottom to the top of the financial pyramid.

Ripples

[UttBuggly]

I couldn't care less about MMS. Don't use it, won't use it.

Unfortunately, I'm in the minority, based on AT&T network behavior since late Thursday. Typically, I DON'T get dropped calls or "unable to contact mail server" or text messages that take hours to send/receive. Since early Friday a.m., I've gotten all of that and both of our iPhones have gone "brick" on us; won't make or take a call.

Might be coincidence, but doubtful. We did get iPhone OS 3.1 and iTunes 9.0.x in the last 2-3 weeks, so there may be some issue there. Again, I don't think so. Several of my friends with iPhones and folks WITHOUT iPhones, but on AT&T have had issues. I've also noticed the DNS servers at AT&T are flakey as hell right now. Did some WireShark caps and offered to send them to AT&T Support, but so far, no takers or response of any kind. Straight NSLOOKUPs are timing out, which is annoying to say the least.

So, I think there are some ripples in the network pond and they (AT&T) SHOULD be nervous.

Re:If it crashes AT&T's network...

[Eternauta3k]

Around the globe in other countries NO operator has been nervous about running out of capacity, ever.

Well, I don't think they care (so they don't worry either), but in my country every so often you can't make cellphone calls because there isn't enough capacity (and, once in a while, you call a person and get connected to another one).