AT&T has just announced that MMS -- a
much-ballyhooed feature of iPhone OS 3.0 -- will finally be hitting AT&T on September 25. There's still no date for tethering, though the company is holding the line that it'll be offered "in the future." Expanding on the logic behind the tethering delay, they're saying that "by its nature, this function could exponentially increase traffic on the network, and we need to ensure that some of our current upgrades are in place before we can deliver the expanded functionality with the excellent performance that customers expect." We're no network engineers, but "exponentially increase traffic" and "AT&T" are two things we don't typically like to hear in the same sentence -- let's hope the 850MHz, 7.2Mbps, and backhaul upgrades they're cranking on right now go a long way toward sorting that out. As for MMS, they're acknowledging that the release "does indeed fall a few days past the official end of summer," arguing that their support of more iPhone customers than any other carrier in the world made a positive launch experience a bit of a challenge. Of course, virtually every other phone AT&T sells (and has sold for the past several years) supports the same tech, so this feels like a pretty active admission that iPhone users blaze through data-rich features at a pace that the carrier has been ill-equipped to handle.
posted September 3rd 2009 2:09PM
That's my birthday! For Real!
I have to defend a speeding ticket on that day.
In fact, today at 4:30 I have to defend a stop sign summons.
(and before anyone comments on my driving, I'd just like to say, owning an SRT8 isn't easy)
The day after mine!!
SRT 8 what? Charger? Challenger?
SRT 8 unicorn.
Maybe if you bought a car that weighed less than 5000 lbs, you could have stopped in time.
AT&T,
Free tethering or I wait for Verizon to get the iPhone.
C'mon carriers, where's the competition?!
I *bet* owning an SRT8 ain't easy! Gotta damn near bring the thing to a standstill in order to negotiate a corner.
And I guess that's not as easy as it sounds if the brakes are so bad you can't stop at a stop sign.
http://help.BenM.at/usa.php from your iPhone, and agree, you get tethering.
I have an SRT8 Jeep Grand Cherokee and haven't gotten any tickets. It's a fun SUV to drive, wouldn't take it off road, but on interstate 80 which I drive daily, it's smooth, responsive and passing semi's has never been easier. :)
Dodge: All power, nothing else. No braking, no handling, no cornering, no drivability unless you want to go fast in a straight line everywhere.
all your at&t network are belong to us!
-mms
So this is where we all go on about what stuff we own that has no connection to the product? Just to try and sound cool on the internet? Neato!
xcrunk...uh I hope you don't actually think Verizon would give you free tethering....
Well, we have been using MMS and tethering for awhile in Canada now, really, they are not a big deal. Few people use MMS.
Go KeatMP, it's your birthday!
Lol at all Gran Turismo fanboi's that have no idea what they are talking about. I bet most of you making comments have never even driven a car with more HP then your "massive V6" Honda accord if it wasn't attached to a game console controller.
For your information, since there is an SRT8 Challenger sitting outside I can tell you that they handle extremely well, and are also very stable at speed. Hell, our old 2000 S430 mercedes would probably outhandle the majority of the econoboxes that you "auto critics" drive.
SRT8 comes with Z rated tires, huge brembo brakes, Mercedes derived stability control, Getrag rearend with independent rear suspension, and an excellent gearbox. Believe me, having made several high speed stops in the car during local road course, poker run, and "spirited cruises" through the twisties in North central FL, I can tell you, if this car has a strength, is it's handling compared to the other cars in it's class, in addition to being the only 2+2 you can comfortably fit 4 full sized adults (I'm 6'2 and can sit in the back with a normal 5'10 passenger up front.).
Mine too lol, first thing I thought and first comment I saw.
Thanks, tamp0N-cobra.
@tampa03cobra
brembo brakes.
'nuff said.
If yall are so interested in automobiles you should just go to Autoblog.
Wait, did he just say "twisties" and "Florida" ?
Christmas in September for iphone users
Only if you're an AT&T user with low features expectations. AT&T just decided to honor their rainchecks. Almost all of the rest of the iPhone users around the world had MMS a while ago, almost all other mobile phone users had MMS a long long time ago.
Not just MMS, but tethering. I've been enjoying tethering since I got my 3GS since my country has real 3G networks and not the kiddy networks that they have in the US.
@ Adam Zey: What's with the mystery, what country do you live in?
please suck my, 'in the future'...
@Adam Zey: Because I'm sure your country has nearly 305 million people in it and is close to as large as the US is, so your "real" carriers there have to deal with the same problems that AT&T does.
PS: AT&T really disappointed by delaying MMS, and I will never forgive them. Your comment is just silly and not well thought out.
@Cannonater It's not only size that matters mate. It is true that if you live in a big country then the carrier has more area to cover. But in the same time if you also have a bigger populace then you also have more people paying for that coverage. So all in all that would instead of just being about how big the country it,would be about how many people live in it per square kilometer.
If I take my own country Sweden as an example to put against the USA.We have a quite small population of about 9 million but the country is relatively big for european standards and we end up with a pop/km of 20/km. While the USA (being all that big and all) end up at 31/km (stats taken from wikipedia).Which means that if you hence (as given by the information) have more people per area then you "should" also have better coverage as more people are paying for it.
For some odd reason that is not what's happening if you look at USA coverage right now. Over here there is coverage in over 90 percent of the country.I think we are somewhere in the reaches of 95-99 percent if I remember correctly.
Here we have laws stating that operators need to be able to cover (build to cover) the biggest part of the country to be allowed to operate.So the problem here is not the size of the country but how the operators handle their coverage and how the government handles the operators.
Over here MSS and teethering was instantly enabled and I have been enjoying teethering (I still see MSS as pointless) since the launch.
So I cannot do much but pity how it looks for you over in the states. On the other hand it's also partly your fault for letting the operators slip to that level.
This is just obnoxious.
We are Apple! We innovate! Everyone mimics us! And now, we present MMS!!! (clap track)
Yes, we are behind schedule. Meh. We have so many customers that we don't really care.
This is insulting. I can't wait to ditch AT&T.
HTC Hero on Sprint or iPhone 4G on Verizon in 2010 baby!
Damn right it's obnoxious. I can't WAIT to hear AT&T's real explanation for this.
"The unique capabilities and high usage of the iPhone’s multimedia capabilities required us to work on our network MMS architecture to carry the expected record volumes of MMS traffic and ensure an excellent experience from Day One." ................ will simply not cut it.
@yakapo your idiotic mockery of Apple blatantly reveals your low IQ, for the capability for the iPhone to send and receive MMS has been made available by Apple since at least the release of 3.0. AT&T was the company that dropped the ball and became one of the few carriers WORLDWIDE that didn't have MMS support for iPhone OS 3.0 by launch date.
You meager attempt to put down Apple and discount them as a successful company with a successful piece of hardware has been made quite moot despite your less than glamorous use of cheap sarcasm.
To reference your post in terms your small mind can understand :
FAIL
uh unknown....I think you are a FAIL since Apple WAS really late to the game with MMS, 2 years after the first iphone which was launched 5 years after MMS commercially launched...during a period where just about EVERY phone had MMS (excluding those with crap monochrome or very small color screens), and while standard AT&T messaging packages included MMS...so ya know, his little put down is kinda warranted..it's just that he is a couple months late :)
They'll probably offer tethering when people leave their network in droves after their exclusivity deal is done with apple.
Hmm I thought that was already supposed to be out in August... guess that never went through?
No it wasn't. It was always known that it would be in the fall when ATT will push it out.
Some other carriers implemented it earlier.
not taking it personal, but for some reason Mark, your avatar annoys me
Apple originally said at the 3.0/3GS launch event that MMS would be available worldwide, and on AT&T "later this summer."
Summer doesn't end in August, though I know most people think it does. In fact it ends on September 21st.
But regardless of whether AT&T missed the normal use of the word summer by several weeks, or the technical definition of summer by four days, they LIED and they deserve all the scorn they're going to get.
My Company is holding off on deploying the iPhone as a corporate choice until tethering is available. Based on AT&T's performance in general I'd say it could be YEARS before they enable it on the iPhone.
Hey Apple! Put the iPhone on ANY OTHER NETWORK and many of us will BUY ANOTHER ONE! I would just jump at the chance to dump AT&T.
Is this an added cost or MMS free?
Free, if I'm not mistaken.
The only cost is the inevitable deterioration of AT&T's network speeds due to the combination of rampant MMSing and their insufficient infrastructure.
You can use MMS foe free but please take it easy okay? Please don't kill our fragile network, please pretty please :(
-AT&T
Its free if you have a SMS package. Otherwise it counts at their ridiculous message rate... in other words, send an email.
nothing is for free...you're going to pay for it one way or another
I am going send MMS until my fingers bleed, which may take awhile on the iPhone. Gotta make up for lost time though.
This will kill network :D
Too late!
@geofegg
yeah really lol