iPhone FINALLY gets MMS on AT&T

September 25, 2009

Multimedia Messaging Service, known as MMS has finally landed to iPhone users on AT&T’s network. While users are rejoicing and saying to themselves in disbelief – “it’s about time” – network engineers at AT&T are also wondering how long it will last.

AT&T iPhone users get MMS

As many throughout the industry know, over the last several years, carriers nerviously build out new networks and watch as they quickly outgrow their platforms. So today, AT&T is doing just that as the introduction of MMS  for Apple’s iPhone could slow or possibly even crash the AT&T network.

It has also been reported that many companies are suspending or delaying the start of their mobile marketing campaigns until after today to avoid giving a push in the midst of a potential blackout. We don’t expect this new feature to crash AT&T. However, never say never.

There have been preliminary tests at AT&T which indicate a substantial strain on the company’s MMS servers. Starting at 10AM Eastern today, it’s do or die as it officially rolls out. As a result, some industry analysts estimate that traffic on AT&T’s already well-stretched wireless network could see a 40% increase in traffic as iPhone excitedly break in the service.

In September 2008, QWASI released a MMS solution for the lack of MMS with an iPhone App called ActivMMS. Unfortunately, like the Google Voice Application, Apple rejected the App without reason. Several appeals still left it dead on arrive.

The iPhone App was recently introduced in the last release  – 3.0 and has been in use in other networks around the world. At&T chose not to support it until it could work out the bugs in its network. The change will not be automatic for users today and requires the user to open iTunes, connect their device and download the new profile.