iPhone and MMS

READ THIS PARAGRAPH FIRST!!!
I posted a tweet about how I got MMS working and it seems a few people got interested. Great! These are the steps I followed in order to get MMS working on my iPhone 3G back in February and how I lost MMS when I upgraded to my 3GS. Last night I got MMS back and I'm thrilled! If you don't have the patience or willingness to hear "no" a lot today, don't do it. It's frustrating or fun depending on how you look at it. Hell, you may get a rep that's very willing and eager to help. I did a few times. YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR VOICEMAILS IN THIS PROCESS WHEN THEY REMOVE THE iPHONE DATA PACKAGE
If you get suck at all, refer to the troubleshooting section at the bottom of this post

AND THIS ONE TOO!
You will need a few things in order for this to work:
1) an iPhone (duh!)
2) a non-iPhone (oh crap! I didn't have one so I borrowed my cousin's for 5 minutes)
3) the balls and patience to speak to AT&T all day, different reps, and be told no several times. You'll most likely end up calling multiple times and spending hours on the phone.

Let's get started.

Back in February I called AT&T (don't call 611 from your cell, grab a landline because these steps require things done to your phone that will disconnect you if you're using it). The number is 1-800-331-0500.

First, tell them you're extremely unhappy with viewmymessage.com and want that notification removed from your account and the regular messaging plan added to your account. They'll tell you that you will no longer know when you receive an MMS. Tell them you understand you won't be able to use it but that you would rather not see the alerts than know you have an MMS and be unable to retrieve it. The messaging plans are called Messaging 200, Messaging 1500, and Messaging unlimited, not iPhone messaging 200, iPhone messaging 1500, etc.

Get them to enable WAP Push on your account (this may be one of the hardest things to get them to do). Good luck.

Get them to reset the VLRs and resend the Over-the-Air Activation (OTA). These are merely formalities and may not have anything to do with MMS at all but it doesn't hurt to try.

Get them to put MEdiaNet pay-as-you-go on your account. This is NOT compatible with the iPhone Data package. With my previous experience the rep told me so and then when he added it, the iPhone data package got removed. This time when I called back I was told the system spit out an error message instead and they were unable to add it. You may need to give them the IMEI of the non-iphone at this point and tell them you plan on using that phone from now on and that you don't want the iPhone data plan anymore. Turn off anything on your iphone that uses internet because medianet charges you $0.01/KB and you probably don't want that. I just had my phone off throughout this whole thing. Put your sim into the other phone once you're done with the rep and maake a call or two, text a few friends, or just wait a few minutes. Go to http://mymedianet.wireless.att.com/ and enter your phone number. If it tells you your phone does not support MEdiaNet then you either didn't wait long enough or the rep screwed up. Once you're in, customize your MEdiaNet. Add local weather or something, it really doesn't matter. What MEdiaNet does is control the MMS gateway. If you don't have access to MEdiaNet you won't have access to send MMS.

Try to send an MMS with your non-iphone. If you have trouble, call AT&T and tell them you can't send MMS and make them fix it until you can.

Once you're done, put the SIM back into your iPhone and try to send an MMS, see what happens. Hopefully it'll succeed. Now call back AT&T and tell them to put the iPhone data package back on. You should now have MMS.


TROUBLESHOOTING:
1) I don't have the option to send MMS in my "Messages" app!
Crap...You'll most likely have to go to http://help.benm.at and download the settings file that enables tethering. After that, reboot, and hopefully you'll have MMS enabled in your Messaging app.

2) I don't have a different phone
You're kinda screwed. Find somebody whose phone you can borrow for just 5 minutes, that's all you need. I did this at work and found a few people willing to lend me their phones.

3) I still don't have MMS, even on my non-iPhone
Call AT&T and make them fix it. Tell them you switch back and forth between your phones and you want all the features working all the time. They'll try to tell you that you'll need another sim card because the iPhone does weird stuff that means you can't switch it into another phone. That's a lie.


I hope this helps and if it doesn't, post a comment or send me a tweet @Crashspeeder and I'll try to help you out.

Busy iPhone day

My poor phone's battery has been abused this whole trip. It's my escape, really. I've been charging it 2-3 times a day since I got internet on Sunday or so.

So I signed up for a twitter account, got a few twitter apps on my phone and just downloaded a blog app so I don't have to open the page every time. I'm having fun at least.

Feel free to follow me on twitter. I'll most likely post lots of smaller updates there and keep posting like I've been here. Later, folks!


-Crash

Productivity is Relative

I spent all day on the phone with AT&T. I sat at my desk at work just fucking with my phone, really. I wanted to be able to send MMS. I bought a phone for $330 plus a 2 year contract, damn right I'm getting MMS! Hell, my VX9800 and VX6000 could send MMS! I called tech support a minimum of 5 times today just fucking with settings on my plan. Finally by around 9:30PM or so I was able to get MMS working. It took a long time but it was worth it.

Don't get me wrong, I worked today. I got everything done that was assigned to me. I just devoted most of my time to my phone. I was able to send and receive messages just a few minutes ago. I'm hoping I'll be able to still send and receive tomorrow, a week from now, a month from now, etc. I've heard this can be finecky and work for maybe only a day or work for a few months and then stop. We'll see.

All-in-all, it was a fun day. I got to be so many different people while on the phone. I gave one lady a brow-beating over the phone for telling me the iPhone can't MMS and I was the funniest, nicest guy with another lady. I was the "I know how you system works so just do this and don't ask questions" guy with 2 people, and the helpless customer with another. A great experiment in social engineering, really. Quite amusing to see how different people react to different personalities.