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Thursday, September 25, 2008

AT&T Blocks MMS on Iphone Plans even if you pay for it!!!!

We should all be aware by now that if you are one of the few of us that actually played by the rules (to a certain extent) and actually have a legit Iphone through AT&T in the US, Swirly MMS will not work and your sim chip will not allow you to send MMS from any phone you put it in! This is because AT&T blocks this feature in their system by using a profiler that runs every night to disable MMS if you have the iphone plan! This is rediculous and I think AT&T should at least here it from us. Even if you do not feel as strongly as I do, please take the time to let them know that what they are doing is not OK.

Contact AT&T

If anyone else feels as strongly as I do about how AT&T blocks mms on the iphone send a letter to corporate complaints, or email them:
at&t
5020 Ash Grove Road
Springfield, IL 62711
or go here AT&T Corp Comments

I sent them a comment on the corporate site above and got a phone call back from a corporate complaints rep. I have attached the message I sent below. BTW she basically told me it was impossible if the iphone plan was on my line because the profiler runs and night and changes it back.

Sent this to AT&T, Maybe if they get enough complaints they will actually listen!

I am writing to complain about something that AT&T is blocking on Iphone users. I currently have an Iphone 3G on my family plan with unlimited messaging. I also have another phone that I would like to use from time to time in order to send and receive Multimedia Messages (a feature included on the family texting plan i pay for). I was very upset to learn that the MMS feature is blocked on my line because I have an Iphone, regardless of whether I pay for it or not. This is a major issue because your website clearly states “With just one package - ALL lines in your FamilyTalk group can send and receive UNLIMITED text, picture, video and instant messages with anyone in the US.” I was on the phone with a customer service representative for 45 minutes who was oblivious to the fact that AT&T blocks this before she realized that this is common practice for iphone lines. Once she was told by a supervisor, she relayed the message that there was nothing she could do. I asked to speak with the supervisor which took another half hour to get on the line to speak with me. The supervisor was not helpful, I told her what your website states and she told me not for the Iphone because it doesn’t support it. I told her that I am paying for a feature that AT&T is deliberately blocking and I demand the restriction be lifted and she refused. I am a loyal customer to AT&T and have been for over 10 years and I simply cannot figure out what the reason is for this restriction. Something as simple as lifting a restriction can make your customer happy and after an an hour and a half on the line with AT&T support, they refused to unblock a service I pay for. AT&T does not block this service on any other phone, regardless of whether or not it supports MMS and to block something that I pay for is preposterous . Especially after asking a supervisor to lift this restriction. Please feel free to call me with any questions you may have or for more information regarding my issue.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Tony,

You are absolutely right on this. They keep stating that it's the phone. So I took another phone, (Motorola Razor 3vx with 3G) and put my sim chip in it. I sent myself all the correct settings and reset my phone. I then tried to send MMS. Just what I thought, it didn't work. I then found out that based on the IMEI of the phone (when it's an IPHONE) they block or unblock MMS. In the IPhone's case, it's blocked. So I took my phone in to the ATT store and changed the IMEI to that one. Poped my sim back in my IPHone and MMS now works. Of course the next day I get a text from ATT complaining about my data plan, but they won't let me move the account the better plan without it being an IPhone plan. ATT really needs to realize that many of us have jailbroken phones and want to use MMS (3rd party app). The ony thing I can imagine is that they do this to intercept the MMS messages and send you that text message to view it on some web page that never works. Why not instead forward to an email address and give you the option to receive MMS if you happen to have swirly mms on your phone. Not for nothing, but I'm just considering going with T-Mobile because of all the headaches with ATT (My 3g worked on T-Mobile MMS/SMS/Data all) and it's just very anoying especially since we are being charged for the service.

Unknown said...

Just wanted to let you know I wrote an email late last night to AT&T Corp. From the link on your blog. I got a little carried away and told them I was going to offer anyone that wanted to leave AT&T free jailbreak/unlocking services because they are blocking features of their most expensive phone when old cheap phones work. Well that seemed to get some attention anyway as I got a phone call at 9am this morning from the Corp office. The lady left a messege saying she worked for the president of AT&Ts office and would like to let me know that the features will soon be available and she would like me to call her back so she could explain. Honesty I was shocked.

Unknown said...

I was going to repost the email to the corp office link and they have removed it. Also, I spoke to them this morning and the lady actually agued with me that it wasn't anything with At$T and that it was Apples fault. I have a new 3GS and I installed the 5.0 carrier file gives me the option to send an mms but it won't go through. I was told last night that they block it because it's an iPhone. I'm a developer and can't get them to unblock it. The swear up and down that they aren't blocking anything.