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

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true in the US. I know many people who work at VZW and ones who work at ATT Wireless. The way the networks handle MMS is completely different. My friend on ATT can send me a pic or video, which comes in fine, when I go to forward to another VZW user it reports the MMS is too large.

Also, I can send a picture to a few people I know.. all but 1 is on VZW. The one who isn't is on ATT since that's who he's working for. Half of the time, all the VZW people will get it, but he will receive a MMS with nothing in it. On some occasions, it will happen when he MMS's a message to me.

I am glad that VZW->ATT and ATT->VZW texting has finally sped up. It use to take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour for a text from my VZW phone to any one of my friends ATT phones to make it.

Re:MMS is pretty pointless after all

[Brandee07]

MMS would have caught on with my friends a long time ago if it weren't so crippled by the phones that use it.

When I received an MMS on my old phone, I couldn't do anything with it but view it. I couldn't save it to my photo library, or set it as the wallpaper, forward the message, or anything, really. It was permanently attached to the SMS it came with, to either clog my inbox or be deleted. Thus, the useful functions of an MMS image are reduced to a) sending pictures of your drunk friends to other drunk friends and b) sending pictures penises to, well, anyone. With the ability of the iPhone to save an MMS photo to my photo roll, and from there send it by MMS or email to someone else, or edit it in an app, or later save it to my computer, I might actually use the MMS feature on occasion.

So, I feel that the crippled firmware of most phones is to blame for MMSes not catching on. Many of you will claim that the iPhone OS is likewise hobbled by Apple's tight controls, but if you think that the iPhone OS has it's hands tied by software/firmware, than normal phones are wrapped head to toe in duct tape, placed in cast iron sarcophaguses which are then welded shut, buried under several tons of concrete, and placed under armed guard for the rest of eternity.

Your mileage on phone OSes may vary. Prior to the iPhone, I used a Nokia flip phone that ran the default Cingular OS, whatever the hell that's called.

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

[Brandee07]

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.

No, actually, it's not. It was, back when the first iPhone came out, but now you're required to get a $30 data plan that includes no SMS or MMS messages. I pay for those at the a la carte rate of $.20 and $.30 each, respectively. If I sent more than 5 a month, I might consider an Messaging plan at an additional $5 to $30 a month, depending on which plan. But it's certainly NOT included in the price of the iPhone data plan.

Re:MMS is pretty pointless after all

[marmoset]

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.

Actually the US AT&T base iPhone data plan doesn't include SMS nor MMS. For $5 you can add 200 SMS/MMS. (I'm on the family plan)

I really don't see myself using MMS all that much -- after all, I've got a full-featured mobile email client. I have some younger relatives with cheapie feature phones that occasionally send us cameraphone snaps, though, and this will beat the crap out that horrible viewmymessage.com torture we had to go through before.

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

[jonbryce]

I was thinking that too. In Europe, *every* phone has MMS, with the possible exception of some older Blackberries which don't have cameras, and the "easy to use no frills phones" marketed to older people. I don't think there are any of those on the market at the moment.

Re:MMS is pretty pointless after all

[plover]

Oh, sorry, you're absolutely right. I was confusing some of the salesman's spiel with some of the things we rearranged on our plan to switch to the iPhones.

Re:MMS is pretty pointless after all

[mobby_6kl]

MMS also works/ed on my SE T68i, which was a slight update of the T68 from what, 2001? I didn't send many messages, but from what I remember it was pretty easy to use and worked well.

As far as I can tell, MMS didn't catch on here was because they were ridiculously expensive. Vodafone, which I use, prices them at 65 cents per message, independently of the plan you have. Even if you're on the cheapest monthly plan, this works out to over 2 minutes of talk time per message, and gets more silly for more expensive plans. T-Mobile and O2 seem to have slightly more reasonable prices, but not by much.

Re:MMS is pretty pointless after all

[rdoger6424]

I didn't really have problems with vzwatt texting recently, but in my (limited and recent) experience with texting between Sprint and ATT, it's a huge excercise in futility.

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.

Re:MMS is pretty pointless after all

[hitmark]

SMS needs no configuration as its built into the base GSM system as part of the control channel, GRPS builds on that and leave a lot of the config on the phone (DNS/DHCP), MMS is basically a special SMS (that the user will never see unless they use a very old phone in the GSM sense) that results in a download by GPRS from a carrier operated server...

Re:MMS is pretty pointless after all

[Savage650]

First of all: as a technology, MMS is just "emails with multimedia attachments". Thus, it becomes is pointless once the majority of handsets that can send and receive mail either natively or by accessing a webmail server.

The majority of phones that I have used required some special set up to use MMS and GPRS; usually sending a SMS to register for those services then receiving a message back containing automatically installing settings.

What happens when you "register for MMS" (either explicitly or implicitly by sending a MMS using the known settings) is that a MMSC (MMS Center, one of possibly many your carrier operates) is assigned to you (or rather, your Subscriber ID). Once that assignment is committed to the HLR database, incoming MMS for you will be forwarded tho that specific MMSC; without this assignment, you will only get a text message ("A MMS was received but we don't know how to reach you").

Sending a MMS is simply a "HTTP post" that uploads a "MMS Send request" (including your content as as MIME-Multipart Message) to the MMSC (Which then has to figure out how to forward it to the recipient(s) listed).

Receiving a MMS is the hard part: the MMSC sends a binary short message to your mobile, telling it "please fetch MMS at "http://$addr-of-mmsc/some-unique-but-hard-to-guess-id". (Insert lots of cursing about MMSC vendors whose software creates URLs so bloated that the Notification message gets longer than ~120 Bytes, causing it to be split into two SMS that need to be reassembled on them mobile).

If/When you decide to download the message

• the mobile will do a "HTTP GET $theURL" (including headers describing the Capabilities and limitations of the UserAgent (i.e. your mobile)
• the MMSC tries to re-encode the Message to conform with those limitations (e.g. by shrinking or transcoding images and videos)
• your mobile receives the transcoded Message (as the response to the GET)
• your mobile must upload a "receive confirmation"; otherwise the MMSC will keep sending those notifications.
• your mobile might send a separate "read confirmation" when the message has been displayed.

The MMS protocol contains a lot of functionality (message forwarding, permanent storage for messages, reverse charging, user selectable send/expiry times, ...) that never reached the customer. And with the limited features offered by the carriers (at premium prices nonetheless) MMS was dead in the water even before the advent of email-capable mobiles and "unlimited data" options.

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.

Sigh, AT&T...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when will they learn that by being d***-**s cheapskates trying to "earn" (save) a few pennies by not spending money on expanding the capacities of their network to allow more services, they will never reap the tremendous money involved in customers' spending in that area (or to put it differently: they won't have a chance to rape the customers with sky-high traffic fees per single MMS).

Just look at the operators in europe, and the money they are making by making sure their customers can actually send MMS' and use network access etc. Gee, who'd figure it'd pay off?! Not the dumb-greedy suits over at AT&T anyway, that's for sure. Sigh.

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

[hamburgler007]

...it's their own damn fault. Considering how long mms has been around, and how long this has been mulled and they have had to prepare for this.

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).

Just a thought

[hedwards]

Perhaps AT&T should spend the time it spends fucking up my voicemail to fix the network. Or god forbid actually invest in infrastructure. Given the ridiculous overpricing that mobile providers commit, one would think that somebody would have money to actually service the equipment and increase bandwidth. I mean they do it other places just fine with less cost per customer.

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.

Don't use MMS

[trawg]

MMS just helps cell/mobile telcos perpetuate the myth that they're now anything other than mere purveyors of wireless data connectivity. The iPhone has done so much to help break this pattern, it'd be a shame to go backwards.

arrives?

[Anonymous Coward]

MMS Arrives For the iPhone
MMS arrived for the iphone with the release of 3.0, which happened months ago, which means most of us have had MMS for months now. it's just you american peasants who are newly getting it. headline should read, AT&T finally allows MMS on american iphones

MMS? But surely no one wants that, you said?

[mdwh2]

But how could it crash anything? - Surely, for years we've been told that the no one needs MMS anymore, certainly not Iphone users, and no one would possibly want to use it. So why is it news that it now has MMS - let alone the wild claim that it might crash a network?

Seriously, it's not news, unless you count taking so long to add the feature. We don't have news for any other phones adding features that have been around for years. The idea that MMS, which has been around for years, might suddenly result in a spike in usage in 2009, enough to cause a network to crash, is ludicrous - if Iphone users were so desperate for that feature, why did they buy an Iphone? (And remember that the Iphone is still a minority of all phones sold - yes, you can redefine the market to "smartphone" and say it's doing well there all you like, but the market here is that of all mobile phones which can send MMS, which is billions - so even if all Iphone users started using MMS, it wouldn't make any significant difference in the global usage.)

I thought this was news for new technology, not news for old technology... I bet in a few months time, we'll be hearing people say "Well it doesn't matter that other phones had MMS for years, people only started to use it with the Iphone" - despite the fact that, for years, all we heard was from those same Iphone fans "But why would I have the need for something outdated like MMS?" No, this is just another trumped up Slashvertisement for the Iphone, where a wild speculation is made as if Iphones were 90% of the market, and perpetuating the myth that no one uses anything until the Iphone does it.

Will It Crash AT&T's Network?

[willyd357]

We can only hope.

Re:Will It Crash AT&T's Network?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense.

AT&T has one of the most robust cellular networks in the nation. To think that MMS would take down their infrastructure is simply silly.

-- posted from my iPho{#`%${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER")

.... only in the US

[khchung]

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

Not surprisingly, this is only the case in the US. Same with the AT&T lock-in.

Here, iPhones can send/receive MMS just fine for a long while already, and I can plug any SIM card in it and it just works.

Re:.... only in the US

[ptbarnett]

Here, iPhones can send/receive MMS just fine for a long while already [....]

Since June 17th, 2009 -- approximately 3 months ago.

Non-Open Networks

[Cytlid]

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

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.

Multimedia Messaging Service

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

SPELL OUT ACRONYMS THE FIRST TIME YOU USE THEM!

Lazy bastards.

t his is f1or the l ameness filter 1th is is fo2r the la meness filter 2thi s is for3 the lam eness filter 3this is for 4the lame ness filter 4this is for t5he lamen ess filter 5this i s for th6e lamene ss filter 6
this is for the7 amenes s filter 7this is for the 8lameness filter 8this is f or the l9ameness filter 9this is fo r the la0meness f ilter 0this is for the lamaeness fi lter -this is for the lamesness fil ter =
this is for t he lamendess filt er athis is for th e lamenefss filte r sthis is for the lamenesgs filter dthis is for the lamenessh filter f this is for the l ameness jfilter gthis is for the la meness fkilter h
this is for the lam eness fillter jthis is for the lame ness fil;ter kthis is for the lamen ess filt'er lthis is for the lamene ss filtezxr ;this is for the lamenes s filter c'this is for the lameness filter hjj
  this is for the lameness filter this is for the lameness filter
this is for the lameness filter this is for the lameness filter this is for the lameness filter this is for the lameness filter this is for the lameness filter this is for the lameness filter
this is for the lameness filter this is for the lameness filter

Re:I won't be doing it.

[notxarb]

Maybe soon someone will create a hack to enable tethering with the new firmware. Most patches Microsoft comes out with for WGA and other things are broken quickly. I'm sure people can do the same with the iPhone.