Continued rumor: AT&T MMS delayed until September, iPhone tethering still set to cost $55 a month
July 13, 2009 | Robert Nelson
The availability of MMS for AT&T customers as well as the pricing of Internet tethering seems to be going back and forth in terms of rumors. Given that, it is hard to believe any of the information that continues to show up online.
Anyway, the latest is suggesting that MMS is going to be delayed until September and that the tethering is still going to cost $55 a month.
Lets get into this, at least this time, the story is being brought to us by Appmodo who are claiming the details are courtesy of ‘an undisclosed reputable AT&T employee.”
As for the latest rumored details;
- MMS messaging will be delayed until September
- Internet tethering will be delayed until September
- MMS messaging will not incur any additional charges, in other words, MMS messaging will be included with the existing text messaging plans
- Internet tethering will be $55 “on top of” your current iPhone data plan
Overall, in terms of MMS nothing is really shocking here, it is just a delay, and I should point out that it is a delay on top of what most already consider a delay. Yes, I agree that AT&T should have had MMS messaging available at the time of the announcement.
In terms of Internet tethering, I do believe that $55 a month could be an accurate price, but not the “on top of” part. I am thinking, or at least hoping that these rumors are really suggesting that we will be paying $55 total, which can be broken down like this. The current data plan is $30 a month, then an additional $25 a month for tethering which will add up to a total of $55 a month.
But the bottom line is that AT&T has once again denied these rumors stating that MMS has not been delayed and that a price for tethering has not been announced.
[Appmodo]
now you see thats just wrong! im paying for the unlimited $30 data plan. why are they gonna try to tack on more money when all the tethering is doin’ is useing the data plan. so why is att still trying to draing us for the little money that we do have and taxing us more when they cant even give us smiple mms? they can kiss may @#$ if they think im gonna pay for something that im already suppose to have. AT&T are just some money hungry player’s in this game.
geez…cut us a break!
@Victor
no worries about the tethering. You can get it right now if you search for it. No one should have to pay extra to tether… So don’t. Google is your friend.
AT&T is getting sued because they aren’t releasing MMS. Please, please let god let them get sued. Why would you claim to support MMS by the end of summer and market it as such and not full-fill your promise, WITH NO word of what exactly is going on, delays, reasons, nothing? Because they’re just as shady and Apple is. Period.
Listen to me, I own an iphone 3g and a macbook pro, hahaha hypocrite!
Actually the failure to have MMS by 3.0 launch is completely pathetic given how long the feature was known to be in the software, and how much longer MMS has existed as a technology. Worse, the ‘viewmymessage’ web-site AT&T provides to view MMS content is absurdly unreliable – I would say that I can actually view less than half of the MMS messages that get sent to me, and the rest of the time I get “a failure occurred during message read”.
I get that MMS might be a challenge for them… why I do not know, since they support it on virtually all of their other phones. But really, if you are going to jerk your customer’s chains this way over MMS, can’t you at least make sure that your alternative viewing method actually works? That just doesn’t seem like so much to ask.
As unhappy as I am with the AT&T situation with regards to MMS, it’s important to remember that summer does not technically end until September 21. Soooo, as long as AT&T gets it rolled out by that date (hey maybe there’ll be an announcement at Apple’s music event on the 9th), they will have made it on time. If they miss that date, you can’t reasonably sue for that. That would be like suing Microsoft every time they delayed the release of a new Windows, or Blizzard, every time they delayed the release of a game. You can’t sue because someone missed an estimated ship date of sorts.
As far as lawsuits go, I think it’s quite silly. Anyone who watched the WWDC keynote will clearly remember Scott Forstall’s (sp?) subtle tongue-lashing of AT&T. It was made very clear at the launch of the 3.0 OS that MMS WOULD BE ACTIVATED AND WORKING for people living in a country where the carrier supported it. Unfortunately, AT&T was not one of them. So we here in the US got screwed while our friends in other parts of the world were and still are, happily MMS-ing away. To sue Apple for false advertising would be like suing Ferrari because they claim their vehicle can do 190mph, but the speed limit in your country is 65mph. Other carriers have their act together, AT&T does not.
But for all the woes we’ve experienced with AT&T, I have to wonder, would it have been any better under Verizon or some other carrier? If anything, I think the iPhone has demonstrated how fragile and unprepared our US infrastructure is to support the demanding needs of tomorrow. So far, Verizon hasn’t had to deal with that issue because even with all of it’s “hero” phones, it’s clearly still the iPhone that takes the pie when it comes to data usage. One can only wonder then if Verizon’s network would also have buckled under the strain of millions of heavily-active users suddenly logged on to their network.
DO I NEED TETHERING, I THINK NOT..