On Friday, AT&T will switch on the iPhone's multimedia messaging capabilities, but the carrier is reportedly worried that data usage will spiral out of control.
MMS, which allows users to send photos and video along with their text messages, will be enabled for U.S. iPhone users some time during the day on Friday. AT&T plans to send text messages in waves, letting users know that MMS is enabled, according to DSL Reports. The carrier officially says that notifications will go out in the early afternoon, Eastern time, though one source said MMS could switch on as early as 10 a.m. Eastern.
Either way, AT&T is very nervous about the launch, one source told DSL Reports. As a test, the carrier has already enabled MMS for some users, and the result was "record traffic during peak hours of the night," the source said. The implication is that when MMS turns on for everyone, it'll wreak havoc on AT&T's network.
When it comes to iPhone complaints, MMS has been a sticking point for many U.S. iPhone users. Many older phones support multimedia messaging, and even after the iPhone's 3.0 OS upgrade added the functionality, AT&T held off on supporting it. The reason was that AT&T network was already overloaded due to the iPhone's overwhelming popularity, and adding more data-intensive functions would only make matters worse.
AT&T has been improving its network, apparently to the point that it can support MMS, but the story from DSL Reports suggests that AT&T may not be ready after all.
What to do, then? Once MMS is introduced, there's no way AT&T could deactivate it without suffering irreparable harm to its already-tarnished image. Presumably, that's why the carrier has asked for hourly updates from MMS aggregation partners. AT&T needs this launch to go smoothly, but it's expected that traffic will be 40 percent higher than usual as users test out the service.
So, we'll see what happens. With any luck, the MMS launch will be perfectly executed, and U.S. users can all get back to griping about the iPhone's lack of official tethering support.
