AT&T is on Pins and Needles over MMS Launch

[Michael Essany]

Image via LarryFire

Multiple reports have been published in the last few hours suggesting that AT&T is anything but calm, cool, and collected going into Friday's introduction of MMS for the iPhone.

According to Apple Insider, preliminary tests have indicated a great strain on the company's MMS servers. This "strain" is believed to have been responsible for a "test outage" yesterday. So anxious are the people at AT&T that the company will use every minute between today and tomorrow to shore up capacity to a greater extent than current measures have already provided.

A note published by DSLReports cited a source familiar with the company's MMS upgrade as saying, "Starting at 10AM Eastern (on the 25), AT&T will send out a mass text to a group of iPhone users telling them that MMS now works on their phone. Assuming all goes well, "They will keep doing groups of phones on the hour throughout the day," the source said. Official word from company spokesman Seth Bloom said the upgrade would be targeted at early afternoon on the East Coast, or late morning for users on Pacific Time.

Sources close to the project are estimating that traffic on AT&T's wireless network could prove in excess of 40% higher tomorrow as iPhone users jump head first into the service they feel is both long overdue and their birth right as iPhone owners.

But, at least for now, everything is on track and on schedule for the MMS launch tomorrow morning. AT&T even updated its Facebook page to alleviate concerns that further delays lie ahead. "MMS Update: We know you’ve been eager for this service so we wanted to offer a quick update on the launch plans for MMS on Friday, Sept. 25," said the message. "Late morning, Pacific Time, on Friday, the new carrier settings update enabling MMS should be live and ready to download through iTunes. We’ll provide the steps and all of the details you need right here at that time."

We first learned that September 25th would be the "go date" this past July, when AT&T said that MMS features would finally come to the iPhone. Now the moment of truth is upon us.

Tomorrow should be interesting.

[LittleJob]

Like most other people MMS has been working for months...

cant wait..

-Brandon

[Ticko]

A friend of mine said he was able to get his ATT mms to work starting yesterday. I am on tmobile so mine has been working forever but good luck to all att customers you need it!

[thinknoffcenter]

this service should have been ready long ago, but i'm glad its finally coming. tho knowing at&t, the network will become crippled by 1 pm eastern time, and when i call customer service to complain about it (only cause i'm curious to see who they will blame i.e. iphone users) i can snap right back telling them no, it's at&t's fault for being last to the party seeing as though they had since the announcement of 3.0 back at the begining of the year to prepare "the nations fastest 3g network" for such an event. they obviously know the bandwidth and data the iphone users take up (hell i use well over 650 mb a month) so they should have had an idea of what this will do to thier mms servers, so i will accept no excuse except at&t saying that they are stupid and unprepared.

[DjPrayz]

I cant wait because mine has never worked. I'm ready for this update. It is much needed and deserved for all iphone users.

[nikozen]

It will be interesting to see what if any issues arrive tomorrow when MMS goes live. It would be neat if AT&T published some charts next week of the MMS usage before the 25th, on the 25th and over the weekend.

[TheOrioles33]

Isn't AT&T like the biggest cellular provider in the world? What the hell are they afraid of? Every other phone on it's network has MMS so what's a few million more.

[iphonefreakify]

All i care about Jailbreak that will come after they launch this MMS update and APPLE rolls out another iPhone update

[nwcorey]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa


:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d

[jetfuel495]

Screw updates! SB's IPCC ftw!

[bckane]

Mine has been working since Monday here in South Florida

[eremeya]

Isn't AT&T like the biggest cellular provider in the world? What the hell are they afraid of? Every other phone on it's network has MMS so what's a few million more.

AT&T is far from the biggest carrier in the world (77,000,000 subscribers). The three main Chinese carriers are as big or bigger (China Mobile: 500,000,000 China Unicom: 140,000,000 China Telecom: 78,000,000) Also I hear that Verizon is bigger (by a few million) and then there are carriers in Inda at least one of which is bigger.

The numbers that I gave are not current so there may be a little fluctuation but they are recent enough to give a good idea as to where AT&T stands.

[Jayman11]

nothing here in NJ but hell, my 3G data was down all day yesterday. Wonder if this is why, it's been flakey for 3 days.

[metaserph]

Mine started working in Houston, Tx on Monday.

[sobeniceguy2]

I been enjoying MMS since 3.0 was beta and loving it. I guess everyone now will get to join the PARTY!!!

[klouud]

Will this update unlock tethering? If not... I will just go with the unofficial MMS/Tething activation.

tim

[theman12321]

Isn't AT&T like the biggest cellular provider in the world? What the hell are they afraid of? Every other phone on it's network has MMS so what's a few million more.

i think becuase of how much data snice all iphone users have unlim. data they might be worried that the servers will crash or something and then be down which would get more complaints but again its a i think answer so dont give me **** if im worng

[chris4851]

I have had MMS working for several weeks now with the updated IPCC file. Could care less about tomorrow! Sometimes you need to take things into your own hands!

[techrider62]

It would be a sad thing if att can't hold mms for the iphone

[shiPhone25]

i just want this to finally happen.