AT&T has officially stated that it won’t be able to meet its self-imposed late summer target for the iPhone MMS service, which means postponing the launch until September 25.
The delay could mean that MMS will launch on iPhones four days behind the original end of summer schedule. The delay has been attributed to the data-centric nature of iPhone users who are straining their cellular network beyond limits.
AT&T says that wireless use on their cellular network surged an average of 350 percent consecutively for the past two years. It had projected that the growth will continue at a rapid pace in 2009 and beyond.
MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) facilitates easy transfer of supported content types including, images, sounds and contacts over the cellular network. However, the overpriced service, never took off in a big enough way, especially on data-centric smartphones focused on the content exchange via email or sharing by posting to social networks like Facebook.
AT&T’s MMS service will be enabled for iPhone 3G and 3G S customers only as it’s not supported on first-generation iPhone because the device lacks hardware support for it.
MMS is charged on a per message basis so there is a switch in iPhone’s settings interface to disable the service.
AT&T has been called the iPhone’s weakest link more than once. When the first iPhone came out, critics bashed the device over its slow data transfer stemming from AT&T’s sluggish EDGE network. It is evident that AT&T is still unable to cope with the surge in traffic generated by data-centric iPhone customers.
It remains to be seen whether Apple will agree and I have no doubt in my mind that a 4G capable iPhone will be sold on a multi-carrier basis. In fact, the process is already underway, as indicated by Apple’s three year iPhone deal with China Unicom which was signed on anon-exclusive basis. When US and international carriers deploy 4G networks, a single 4G-enabled iPhone model will work on any 4G network, globally. Simply put, Apple would rather wait a bit longer than go to great lengths engineering two separate iPhone versions, one for AT&T’s 3G network and the other for Verizon’s CDMA. This is the reason you won’t get a Verizon iPhone before 4G is rolled out nationwide.


