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AT&T Offers Video Update on iPhone MMS and Cellular Network Issues

My question is why have they been working on the MMS issue for the last few months? Why wait for Apple to announce MMS then work on it. They are partners with Apple. I'm sure they were in on the conversation about releasing MMS, in fact that had to be because the 3Gs was being released and they had to be up on what it might be offering on there network.

Sorry but AT&T is just epic fail. Every other carrier in the world supported MMS right out of the box.

And thanks for showing us what a horrible burden it is being AT&T by showing us lame graphics on how cell phones work. We get it.
 
Here's what I learned from that video: nothing. Seriously. I'm not an AT&T hater. The service is actually pretty good around here. But I still don't understand why MMS is a killer more so than, for example, downloading YouTube videos. I was hoping the video would actually be informative. (I know, naive on my part!)

I'd love to talk to some real AT&T engineers about this rather than watching a video that was obviously the brainchild of AT&T's marketing department.
 
I just hope Seth comes out again with another video about all the bad press they're getting about the first video. This is gonna be fun.
 
I don't really see how they are screwing any customers. They can charge whatever they want. As a company they are able to do that. At&t doesn't have to charge less if they don't want to. They came out with a video and said their network isn't able to handle it yet. It isn't, they are working on it. If they release MMS right now it would be stupid because people in metro areas aren't even able to make calls much less send a picture/video messages.

I believe At&t are doing all they can right now, it takes time to build a cellular network. It's also not cheap. I don't see why so many people are complaining right now. Just be patient. Everything can't happen at the speed of light.
 
Guys, to be totally off-topic I was wondering if anyone knew who AT&T purchased their network infrastructure hardware from? Basically, who will be supplying them for their upgrades? I know they can buy out previous hardware put in place by other companies, but my question is as far as building new stuff.

Sorry, i've been wondering forever- hope somebody knows the answer.
 
Why don't you work with us here?

We are looking under the iPhone tab of Macrumors, you know we can't do flash video in our phones. Pretend like your here for US.
 
greenshot20090904155321.jpg



We ... uh ... sold more phones .... uh ... than we can service ... uh yea.
 
Actually, despite all the negativity here, I rather liked the video.

He seemed honest. And what he was was pretty much true.

Are any of you engineers? Improving network bandwidth isn't an easy thing to do.

Ironically, Ted Stevens may not have been too far off when he stated that "the Internet is a series of tubes." Oversimplified? Absolutely. But wrong? Not really.

Thinking of it as a series of tubes is probably a better understanding of the Internet than most laypeople have. Usually technical folks would talk about the "pipes" that transport Internet data, but in English that word has virtually the same meaning as "tubes."
 
It's hitting front page news now. Keep it snowballing, people!

From the CNN video: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/09/04/carroll.dropping.call.cnn

"No one could have known in advance just how much the use our network would increase because of the iPhone and other smartphones. But we are working hard to stay ahead of customer demand..."
- Mark Siegel, AT&T spokesman​
Click to expand...

I have a few bones to pick with this quote. AT&T had a whole year before the iPhone 3G device came out. As it becomes the most popular mobile device, they didn't see this coming? Surely they should have listened in on those blindfolded-with-a-bow-and-arrow analysts from Gene Munster and Shaw Wu who pumped the iPhone rumors for all the stock is worth.

Apple isn't clear of this technical catastrophe, either. What happened to the "collaboration" between Apple and AT&T as Steve Jobs stated in the original Macworld keynote? And, how can you work hard to stay ahead of customer demand when you're actually behind? No MMS, no tethering, poor cell phone reception and wireless data service?

Oh, and thanks for the Visual Voicemail notification I just got for the voicemail someone left for me two days ago.
 
Adisah said:
I don't really see how they are screwing any customers. They can charge whatever they want. As a company they are able to do that. At&t doesn't have to charge less if they don't want to. They came out with a video and said their network isn't able to handle it yet. It isn't, they are working on it. If they release MMS right now it would be stupid because people in metro areas aren't even able to make calls much less send a picture/video messages.

I believe At&t are doing all they can right now, it takes time to build a cellular network. It's also not cheap. I don't see why so many people are complaining right now. Just be patient. Everything can't happen at the speed of light.
Click to expand...

But we went from spending $20 a month to up to $50 a month for the iPhone data plan + messaging. That's pretty significant, and it's basically the same thing, only faster. And personally, I think I've surfed LESS on Mobile Safari on my 3GS than I did with my original iPhone, now that I've got games to play and more capacity to store videos and movies.

So, multiply that by the tens of millions of subscribers and multiply that by the number of months they've had exclusivity and this video stating "we've just started to improve" is the best they have come up with?!
 
VenusianSky said:
The fact of the matter is that no single carrier has complete, sufficient coverage. It doesn't take a genius to understand why that is. Cellular service is still somewhat young for being a large infrastructural development. It has only been a little more than a decade where cellular phones and plans have become affordable enough for nearly everyone to own one.

I hear the same explanation from many people. "I use fill in carrier name because they have the best coverage in my area". Makes sense to me. Maybe those who got blindly sucked into the iPhone should have done a little more research and reconsidered what is more important, cool phone or reliable service. The only person to blaim is Apple for making a cool phone and establishing an exclusive deal with AT&T.

For myself, it just so happens that AT&T's service has always been perfectly fine where I live. I don't recall ever having a dropped call. It was a no-brainer for me to get an iPhone.
Click to expand...

The thing is though that the rest of the world are beating us to the wireless race; while our companies continue "raping" us as customers.
 
BeyondtheTech said:
But we went from spending $20 a month to up to $50 a month for the iPhone data plan + messaging. That's pretty significant, and it's basically the same thing, only faster. And personally, I think I've surfed LESS on Mobile Safari on my 3GS than I did with my original iPhone, now that I've got games to play and more capacity to store videos and movies.

So, multiply that by the tens of millions of subscribers and multiply that by the number of months they've had exclusivity and this video stating "we've just started to improve" is the best they have come up with?!
Click to expand...

Ok, so you can run AT&T better. It's been said over and over again. Cell towers upgrades and network upgrades are done fast. The slow part? Trying to get regulators and do the right paper work. That can take up to months.

AT&T is already investing $17 Billion into its network. Come to think of it, it's half of what Apple has in its bank coffers.

AT&T has released statistics of mobile increase. A whopping 300% no one predicted. If you give me the how come no one saw this coming BS, just look back to reviews 2 years ago for the 1st Gen iPhone. People saw only a possible 160% increase at most. Guess what? It ended up being roughly double.

If you complain that Verizon could have handled it better. Breaking, they would have not. Their network would have crumbled as much as AT&T's had. So quit yapping and be happy that AT&T is actually working to better themselves so you can send cute pictures to your friends.
 
they just need to suck less, granted it has to be hard to provide service for all the iPhones in the US.
 
otis123 said:
they just need to suck less, granted it has to be hard to provide service for all the iPhones in the US.
Click to expand...

How is spending $17 Billion sucking? I want to see how much Verizon or T-Mobile has spent.

Sprint doesn't count on the fact that their network is near nada in many areas (you have to roam) and there network works because people are fleeing in an Exodus.
 
dissdnt said:
Sorry but AT&T is just epic fail. Every other carrier in the world supported MMS right out of the box.
Click to expand...

Every other carrier doesn't have as large of customer base than a carrier in the US. AT&T has admitted that they didn't have enough infrastructure in place to support nation-wide MMS due to the popularity of the iPhone. Remember, MMS is disabled only on the iPhone. There are plenty of other AT&T phones that do MMS.
I think AT&T could have enabled MMS on the iPhone in my area a year ago, and it would have probably been fine, but that wouldn't go over to well with users in other areas.
 
jav6454 said:
If you complain that Verizon could have handled it better. Breaking, they would have not. Their network would have crumbled as much as AT&T's had. So quit yapping and be happy that AT&T is actually working to better themselves so you can send cute pictures to your friends.
Click to expand...

All I'm saying is that it should never have been an exclusive agreement. Apple should break or finish their exclusivity with AT&T, then make a "world" iPhone with both CDMA/EvDO and GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA. BlackBerry has world phones, as well as other OEMs. It's OK, make it 0.5mm thicker than the iPhone 3G and 3GS - I'll forgive you for it.
 
HiVolt said:
LOL, what a bunch of hogwash...

Do they honestly expect people to believe that iPhone MMS would cripple their network? There are far more bandwidth intensive applications for the iPhone than the occasional MMS!!!
Click to expand...

Actually what the video said was that they needed to re-calibrate the towers to enable MMS. Then they started talking about the network and how it has been difficult keeping up with bandwidth demands.

You seem to be thinking that he said that the bandwidth demand of MMS is what is causing those problems, when he specifically said that smartphone usage is the cause. MMS is not a feature supported only by smartphones. Further, he said that internet use in particular is what has made the bandwidth issues especially difficult.

Which part of that explanation said that MMS is causing bandwidth issues?

Im not saying that they are right or that this isn't a load of BS, nor am I trying to attack you in any way, but next time you go to criticize something, try and make sure your argument is logically drawn from what you are criticizing.
 
intelliot said:
Actually, despite all the negativity here, I rather liked the video.

He seemed honest. And what he was was pretty much true.

Are any of you engineers? Improving network bandwidth isn't an easy thing to do.

Ironically, Ted Stevens may not have been too far off when he stated that "the Internet is a series of tubes." Oversimplified? Absolutely. But wrong? Not really.

Thinking of it as a series of tubes is probably a better understanding of the Internet than most laypeople have. Usually technical folks would talk about the "pipes" that transport Internet data, but in English that word has virtually the same meaning as "tubes."
Click to expand...

Nice speech, but what has the internet got to do with MMS?
I really feel for you guys over the pond - MMS is something that has been running over all our UK cellular networks for nearly 10 years, without so much as a blink from any of the providers, or extra cost (on our iPhone plans). It was activated within 10 seconds of updating my iPhone to OS3.0. I really don't understand anything AT&T is saying.
However, as much as a fuss MMS is creating is it not just a gimmick now?Sure, it's fun to send a quick photo or video to somebody in a message, but after 3 or 4 messages the novelty wears off. With services such as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, MobileMe, etc everybody is uploading content direct to here so, really, what's the fuss with MMS?
 
They can't even get the calendar right!

Did you notice the calendar graphic they used showed Sept. 25 (MMS roll out day) as a Wednesday. It's actually Friday.
 
That dude is enough to scare anyone away from AT&T. :D

Seriously, though, AT&T is very good out here on Oahu. Beats Sprint and T-Mobile easily. I've been quite happy, because I can maintain a conversation while driving through the mountain tunnels (Pali Hwy), and my bandwidth here is way better than what many of you are reporting. Not something I could have said about the other guys.

We're ready for MMS over here. --I think.
 
BeyondtheTech said:
All I'm saying is that it should never have been an exclusive agreement. Apple should break or finish their exclusivity with AT&T, then make a "world" iPhone with both CDMA/EvDO and GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA. BlackBerry has world phones, as well as other OEMs. It's OK, make it 0.5mm thicker than the iPhone 3G and 3GS - I'll forgive you for it.
Click to expand...

No and no. Apple should not make a phone with technology less than 20% of the world uses

As for AT&T's exclusive agreement. It's all about the money. If Apple feels like giving up that extra revenue they will, but I have a feeling they won't.
 
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