DÜSSELDORF (dpa-AFX) – The aging photo and video service “Multimedia Messaging Service” (MMS) will be discontinued at mobile operator Vodafone. As the company announced in Düsseldorf on Thursday, MMS can no longer be sent via its mobile network from January 17. After 21 years, it was time for the shutdown, it said. Vodafone justified this with the low interest. Since the heyday of MMS in 2012, usage had fallen by 96 percent. Vacation photos or family videos would now be transmitted by digital services such as Threema, or by iMessage on iPhones and RCS technology on Android phones.
Vodafone launched the MMS function in April 2002. At the time, the service was considered an innovation, but today it seems like a relic from times past.
MMS has several disadvantages: First, its size in Germany is limited to 300 kilobytes, which is very little – cell phone photos usually require much more storage space, but they can be compressed. The second disadvantage is that sending such a multimedia message costs extra – usually 39 cents if the cell phone user does not have a free monthly quota of MMS.
Sending photos via apps such as Whatsapp, Signal or Threema, on the other hand, costs nothing extra if this is done within the monthly data volume of a mobile phone contract.
In the case of company cell phones, on which no apps are allowed and which are only intended for making phone calls, MMS still have a certain added value. The use of MMS is also understandable for older people: Many seniors have only a cell phone and no smartphone with Internet function for apps. However, it is questionable whether MMS was very popular with such older users.
The transmission service never really came into fashion. Even in the period when it was most widely used, MMS was comparatively insignificant compared with its text version SMS: At Vodafone, there were roughly 110 SMS for every MMS sent at the time.
MMS has also been phased out by the other two German cell phone network operators. Deutsche Telekom said that sending and receiving them would only be possible until December 31, 2023. However, there could still be an extension of this deadline. Actually, Telekom had already wanted to shut down at the end of 2022, but then extended it by one year. When asked why there had been the extension, a company spokesperson said, “We see in the usage behavior of our customers that MMS is still in demand on a scale relevant to Telekom, despite the dominance of messenger services.”
Telefónica Deutschland, with its O2 brand, said it would continue to offer the MMS service this year. It is possible, however, that O2 will also push the off button at the end of the year./wdw/DP/zb

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