said by swintec:How did all the other carriers in all of the other countries deal with the MMS launch on the iPhone? Did there networks cripple? Why not? They may not have as many iPhone users, but I would have to think there overall netowkr size is relative for how many iPhone users they have, similar to AT&T.
I think AT&T is going to bring themselves down with this launch. All the hype and hysteria is just going to drive people to send picture messages...just because they can. They should have just quietly turned it on and then slipped something in users bills as the month wore on alerting them to the new functionality.
On a side note, what are these MMS aggregator companies that were mentioned in the stories? Are these separate companies that handle MMS traffic only? How so?
Do all cell providers use them? Even Sprint with there web based MMS system?
You'll find that overseas SMS and MMS are used exponentially more than in the US, they've been working on upgrading their systems far longer than the US and are used to the high load.
As for what a SMS/MMS aggregator is, they are the intermediary services that connect to the other carriers. Remember MMS is a data connection and believe it or not carriers do not all directly connect to every other character just like every ISP isn't connected to every top peer.
The MMS aggregator is where the data gets sent to and is then disseminated onto the appropriate network as to where that message is destined. If the message is ATT to ATT this stage can be skipped depending on their MMSC setup, but if your MMS is destined for another provider say Sprint or Verizon then that information must first go to the aggregator which then is connected to that network for delivery.
Like I pointed out in another post above, people keep placing some irrational blame on Apple when it is indeed solely an ATT issue.