AT&T is allegedly ‘freaked’ as the oft-delayed launch iPhone MMS approaches. So much so, that the company has requested hourly updates from their MMS aggregator partners, in an attempt to quickly discover delays or outages as the service goes live on Friday.
The company projects about 40 percent higher traffic throughout the entire day.
The carrier’s initial tests have lead to “record traffic” during peak hours, from just a limited number of users enrolled in the program. The service on Tuesday was interrupted for period of time, as the company made adjustments to their MMS servers to accommodate the load.
AT&Ts been widely criticized for delaying the MMS launch in the US – as the service already is available in many other countries. iPhone users in many areas have also reported dropped calls, delayed voicemail, and text, poor voice quality, along with poor data speeds. A CNET News feature yesterday [link], critical of AT&T, has further driven anti-AT&T sentiment.
Sources suggest that AT&T will begin enabling MMS for the first group of customers beginning at 10 a.m. EST, while others will be added in waves throughout the day. The method is supposed to help distribute the network stress, although AT&T may adjust its plans if the launch runs into any problems.