This week, my Librem 5 received its first and second ever MMS messages. So, I am reasonably confident that receiving MMS messages now works for me!
The only thing I am unsure of is whether I need to disconnect from WiFi in order to receive MMS messages, or whether it is enough to be connected to mobile data.
However, I am yet to successfully send one to anyone, except myself.
Are we now at a point where MMS should “just work”, provided I input the correct settings? I’m using the ID Mobile virtual network (UK), which has settings listed at https://www.idmobile.co.uk/help-and-advice/get-your-settings
In Settings > Mobile > Access Point Names, I have an access point named iD
, with the APN id
.
In Chatty > Preferences > SMS and MMS Settings, I have the following MMS Carrier Settings:
MMSC: |
http://mms.um.idmobile.co.uk:10021/mmsc |
APN: |
id |
Proxy: |
mms.idmobile.co.uk:8799 |
I have delivery receipts and SMIL turned off.
If I try to send MMS messages to other people, it doesn’t work. I don’t even get charged for sending the message, so it is clearly not getting past the network operator’s MMSC, or else they would have charged me for it.
So far, there have been two occasions when I have been charged by the network operator for sending an MMS message:
- When I sent the message directly to myself. Although I was billed, I never received the message back.
- When I sent the message to a group chat containing myself and another person. I was billed for the message, the other person never received it, but I did receive a copy of it back about half an hour later.
If I receive an MMS message, it does not appear in the existing SMS chat I have with that contact. Instead, it appears in a new chat which is displayed as a group chat between “You” (i.e. me), the other person and the contact entry I have for myself. Also, each message always appears twice within that chat. Can anyone say whether this is the expected behaviour? I have tried recreating this arrangement for sending MMS messages; that is to say, I have tried creating a group containing myself and the other person (the “You” gets added automatically) but it doesn’t help; the messages still don’t get through to the other person.
(To be clear, if I try to send a MMS message to a single contact, that doesn’t work either. Sending it to a not-really-a-group was just an extra thing I tried.)
The strange presentation of single-contact messages as group messages makes me wonder whether there is some weirdness going on involving phone numbers, or the formatting of phone numbers.
If I reply within these “group” chats, whether ones started by receiving an MMS or started by me to try to send one, then those messages never get through. (I assume the phone is trying to send them as MMS messages, because it is a “group” chat, even though it isn’t really a group chat.) I can only reply by going back into the existing SMS chat.
It turns out that, for me, MMS messages cost 2.5 times as much as SMS messages. This means that, if I were actually able to send MMS messages successfully, I could save money by sending text as an MMS message whenever it exceeds 2 SMS messages in length. (On the other hand, if I were to pay for a monthly allowance of SMS messages, then I should never send text as MMS messages until I have exhausted that allowance, unless I am also sending multimedia content, because MMS messages are not included in those allowances.)
Thanks to all concerned for getting MMS reception working.