mms message failure 5 years and no fix yet.

[leighhatt]

I have had my vodafone business contract for 5 years now and ever since I have had the contract I have been unable to send any kind of MMS message, so no picture messages, no contact details or anything else mms based.

I must have been in to the vodafone store 30 times or more and also made at least 50 calls to vodafone call centre but evertime I get told the same thing, "oh it was just a setting, I have changed that for you now sir, give it an hour and try again".

so when it doesnt work I forget about it for a bit until I want to send an mms again then I remember I can't and go through the process again.

The last time I went to the store I was told by one of the sales people "just get whatsapp" I thought he was joking at first but he was dead serious.

The last time I called the call centre I was put on hold for 15 minutes by somebody who didnt understand what I was talking about and when the clock hit 8pm the line went dead! home time!

So anyway I am extremely frustrated with it now to the point I am thinking of leaving vodafone and taking my other 3 contracts with me aswell, but as I like the coverage that vodafone gives me I thought I would try here first and see if anyone has had the same problems as me and if they have managed to resolve them? also by not supplying me this service are vodafone in breach of contact?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi @leighhatt

I appreciate how frustrating it can be when something that should work does not.

Are you able to receive  Mms messages ?

I think the employee was trying to find a workaround for you. What's app and Viber are fine if the recipient has them apps downloaded too. 

Personally I use good old email.

This is because mms have a restriction to what size of file you can send, and that mms are not part of your text allowances but are charged for. 

The Apn Settings can be the culprit I agree. 

You can personally check these are right in your phone by looking at the ones in GeekSquad Here.

To use mms a persons mobile Data needs to be turned on and I think at least a stable 3G connection. 

When some people are having issues with mms then it's a good tip to ring Vodafone Customer Services on 191 and specifically ask them to provision your account for mms. 

I hope some of the above helps.  

[BandOfBrothers]

Just thinking about this a little more I remember some phones I've owned have their own mms restrictions in their settings. 

The iPhone being one example.

It might be beneficial to check through the phones settings to ensure that's not the case in your phone.  

[jeffkinn]

The advice to use Whatsapp is quite good advice. Most people now use that service whether they are business and personal contacts. it doesn't cost any extra (assuming you have some data allowance left) whereas MMS's are very expensive.

Whatsapp is multi platform so it doesn't matter if they recipient has an iOS or Android device. Also a lot of people are now using the desktop Whatsapp clients so they can send and receive messages without having to use their phone.

If you have an iPhone and the recipient does as well you can use iMessage.

[leighhatt]

Thanks for the replies,
I know that using whatsapp is a good workaround but it is not really the point. At the moment every time somebody sends me a picture message I have to log in to an on line account to see it and it is not very practical, my contract is a business one and I do have customers send me information that I could do with being able to receive, and I would feel a little uneasy asking them to send it by whatsapp.
What I need is for my phone to work the way it should and for how I pay for it to work.
I have had all sorts of settings changed on my phone by various Vodafone employees but it has never changed the fact that it does not work.
It would appear that nobody at Vodafone actually cares enough about loyal customers just new ones.

[BandOfBrothers]

You're Welcome. 

As mentioned in my first reply please do ask your Vodafone Business Manager to specifically Provision your Account for MMS. 

If after that being done and all your various settings in the phone look to be correct, and an alternative phone does not yield results then something in your Account must be the issue. 

Am I to assume using the email route isn't an interim solution ?

I hope you get some resolution with this after so long with Mms not working. 

[AnnS]

Hi @leighhatt

With you being on a business contract, sending picture messages by email is a reasonable idea.  Email images are generally able to be received on most smartphones, the charges will then come out of your data allowance.  Where business is concerned, any images are usually emailed to be picked up by the company.

MMS messages have a maximum size of 295kb for sending and receiving, with email there is no maximum size.   It may be worth checking your camera settings to make sure the image is no larger. 

There is further info below.

Support - MMS messaging

[leighhatt]

The mms provisioning has already been tried and I have had 3 different phone over the corse of my contract and it has always been the same.
The problem with email is that other people/customers do not know not to send me mms so then I have to log in to the Vodafone site to se the picture or whatever has been sent via mms.

[jeffkinn]

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@leighhatt wrote:
The mms provisioning has already been tried and I have had 3 different phone over the corse of my contract and it has always been the same.
The problem with email is that other people/customers do not know not to send me mms so then I have to log in to the Vodafone site to se the picture or whatever has been sent via mms.

---

Without taking anything away from the problem you face, I'm very interested in this as I haven't sent an MMS for years, nor been sent one by anyone else. I don't work in a sector where sending and receiving photos is part of the job, but it isn't entirely unheard of. I use Whatsapp a lot both in business and personally and of course email and iMessage.

May I ask what work it is that requires lots of MMS's in both directions?

[leighhatt]

I work in the double glazing industry and lots of my work involves repairs, customers and employees alike send me images of parts that need repairing so that I can source the correct parts.

I do use email for this purpose a lot but it does not stop my customers from sending me the images.

whatsapp is also great and I use that a lot between myself and employees but to be quite fair that is not the point.

I am paying for a contravt that I should be able to send but more importantly recieve mms messages with if I so wish. so rather than people telling me that I should just find a work around can anybody help me sort this problem out?