Optus, MMS, and idiocy.

Posted by Tim Neill, 20th October, 2008 (10:24 pm).

Tags: Customer Service, iPhone, optus, rant

This weekend, two of my friends have sent me an MMS message each. Then they sent me follow up SMS messages because I didn’t get a single one of the MMS messages. This is a widely lamented missing feature of the iPhone, and I totally agree something as basic as MMS should be included. That however, is not my gripe. 

When an MMS message is sent to a non-compatible handset such as your mum’s old Nokia, to your little brother’s old Sony or even to your own iPhone, the phone carrier will generally send an SMS containing a code that can be typed into a website that will then display your newly received rubbish picture multimedia message. Odd, I thought, that I didn’t get a message telling me I had something new from my friends, so I logged on to optuszoo and tried in vain to view my inbox. No dice. No picture messages for that matter, either.

I left it for a couple of days of seeing this message, and on the third day I did call the Optus company itself to see what they had to say. The lady I got through to was exceedingly nice and very understanding once she realised I knew what I was talking about, so no complaints there. After I explained the situation, she was somewhat surprised to read a new training reference page she pulled up in reference to this problem. She read it word for word to me and paraphrased and muddled through the memory of my head - it basically went like this: “..as of 13th October the MMS servers have been rolled over to a new Linux system, and the SMS notification system has been disabled, permanently.”

I push a little harder for information and she found that there had been “hundreds of complaints” and there could be a fix in the works, but there was no firm plans and definitely no ETA for that plan. I asked why I can’t access my messages on my allotted 5MB of online ‘Zoo’ inbox. “that functionality has been removed and disabled for people without MMS capable handsets” - Here’s the kicker. If you do have an MMS capable handset, you get access to online MMS services. If you don’t, you can’t access. Apparently there are no switches or options that can be turned on my the service staff, this connectivity is totally reliant on the phone sending settings to the Optus servers. 

This would explain why my Optus service wasn’t working like it should any more. What it wouldn’t explain is why they decided to push ahead with an incomplete system and why they didn’t inform customers of this change. Now all Optus iPhone owners and everyone who doesn’t have an MMS capable handset have no way of viewing these messages. Not only do we not see them, or any trace that they were ever sent, but the sender still pays for them. Arse backwards? You bet. But I’m coming to expect that from Optus. 

Now, how do I jailbreak this thing?

Edit: On the 23/10/08 I sent this to Optus Customer service:

To Whom it may concern, I have been an optus customer for about 2 and a half years. I’m writing to enquire as to why I am no longer receiving alerts that I have been sent an MMS message, and am no longer able to log onto the Optus Zoo website to view the MMS messages in my 5MB of provided inbox.

I have an iPhone, and realise that they are not compatible with MMS messaging. However, I have been able to log onto the optus zoo website and manage my account from there. Last weekend, I was sent a few messages from friends via MMS and did not receive anything. Not an sms saying where I could retrieve them, not even an sms saying that this service is no longer available - but that I had been sent something.

So I called up the Optus customer service department and the lady I spoke with informed me that Optus had rolled the MMS servers over to a Linux setup, and the SMS alert service was a casualty of this rollover. Not only that, but there was no ETA on when a replacement service was on its way in, or even it there was one coming at all!

I think its incredible rude for this service to be taken away without informing customers, I’m sure many people who have iPhones and other non MMS capable handsets receive MMS everyday and are quite unaware that they may be receiving messages. And not only are the messages not being received, no one is being informed that the message is not getting through (either the sender or the intended recipient) and the sender is still being charged. If all this wasn’t bad enough, I was told by the customer service rep that people with MMS capable handsets are able to log into the site, view their MMS messages and manipulate their inbox - have full functionality. But the people who don’t have the MMS handsets have been flagged as so and are not able to access any online services with regards to viewing MMS. This seems to be completely the wrong way around.

I don’t mean to be a pain, but this is incredibly frustrating for me. I would like to know why my service isn’t what it was a month ago, why I’m not informed of my friends trying to contact me and why I wasn’t informed of this feature being taken away.

 

Edit: On the 18/12/08 Still no word, what gives Optus?