Multimedia messaging into thin air
I just don’t know what to do with the mobile industry sometimes, I really don’t.
I’m a big ambassador for it all. I’m the first to offer to configure the email on a friend’s screwed-up handset. I’m the first to suggest taking a picture on the phone, rather than the digital camera. I use mobile technology often. I experiment, I play and I demonstrate.
It brings me a lot of joy to share cool, innovative applications and services and I’m very enthusiastic most of the time.
However, now and again I have to put my hands up in dismay.
The other day a colleague asked me to send him some video picture messages to help him test a new service. I was delighted to be asked to help out. You know, I’ve got the tools. Got all the toys. Happy to help. It was also a welcome distraction from some involved work I was doing.
So I got my Three handset, shot a boring video then sent it to him. After five minutes he asked if I’d sent it.
In my experience, Three are normally one of the most reliable MMS services. I looked at the handset and it had popped up with an error – “can’t deliver”. Seems Three can’t quite deliver a video MMS to a shortcode. It obviously worked when I sent it to his handset later on — but that’s not what he needed.
My colleague was a bit dejected.
“NO FEAR!” I cried! “I have the N90, standby.”
I switched the video quality to low, took another boring video, then sent it. FAIL. Arse.
I’m always nervous with an unbranded, unlocked handset. You can never be quite sure that the settings you’ve got configured are the right ones. Turns out they weren’t (hence a blog about Filesaveas the other day).
I corrected them. Sent the video again.
Nada. Nothing.
Sent the video to his mobile (instead of the shortcode). Nada.
What a TOTAL arse. Here I am trying to pay money to T-mobile (in this example). In fact I wonder if I’ve been billed for sending a video message that didn’t arrive? Who knows. I’ll forget by the time the bill has come around.
I just can’t handle it sometimes… what idiot… what absolute idiot decided that it was the norm for you to have to configure settings? Why do mobile phone CTOs sit there with a half smile on their face whenever I bring up the subject? It’s simply not good enough.
I’m the one on the coalface carrying out my self appointed ‘mobile is wicked, try it out’ role now and again. And I’m the arse who has to apologise to people and try again and again so as not to dent their enthusiasm for the various mobile services out there.
It doesn’t work though. The vast majority of people I know don’t bother with anything like MMS:
“Tried it once, didn’t work, waste of 50p.”
That’s another consumer switched off. If you assume that this switched-off customer would have moved to quickly to sending just ONE 50p multimedia message a day, that’s £182 quid in revenue forgone by the network or an additional £15 quid a month.
It’s not good enough to respond by saying “ah well that’s how it is.” It’s not good enough to sit and hope that as you upgrade the handsets, this issue will disappear.
Almost everyone I know has a handset capable of sending good quality MMS messages. A lot of them work in and around the mobile industry. When was the last time I received an MMS?
March.
