iPhone setup for MMS - Swisscom/Orange (CH)

Jun 17

iPhone setup for MMS - Swisscom/Orange (CH)

Firstly, this is my own summary of what I had to do tonight to get my iPhones working with Swisscom and Orange - works for customers of either of these providers in Switzerland.

So. My own iPhone has a Swisscom subscription. My development/test iPhone is from Orange.

I updated both to OS 3.0 tonight and was keen to send MMS to see how well it works. The initial surprise: It didn't

Setting up MMS on a Swisscom iPhone:

After posting to Twitter to see if anybody knew how to set up the Swisscom iPhone for MMS, I was given a link by @pastizzi to visit with my iPhone. (Much appreciated! Thank you )

The link enables MMS AND Tethering:

Here is the link - visit from your iPhone and the config file will be loaded!

Clicking the link above will redirect your mobile Safari browser to the configuration. Then you need to select to install the config and all is well - it works!

If you open the link from a browser you'll see a load of xml - not much help

Setting up MMS on an Orange iPhone:

Well, actually, I didn't need to. At first I thought it hadn't worked and found the manual configuration settings on their website. I also found the settings on my iPhone under Settings, General, Network, Cellular Data Network, MMS. Interesting that this whole section of the settings doesn't exist on my Swisscom iPhone!

I was looking through the settings and realised that they were all correct.

Then: The test message I'd sent from my Swisscom iPhone suddenly appeared on my Orange one!

Here's the thrilling conversation between the two iPhones, seen from my Swisscom one:

A thrilling MMS exchange between 2 iPhones

As a little aside: Who can guess what film I was watching?

22 comments

§ AndreaR said on : 17/06/09 @ 22:54
Uhm, the swisscom link does not work for me. Or better, I have successfully added the "tether me" profile, but I then tried to send a test MMS from FFS ticket shop and nothing happens.
§ Robert Turrall® said on : 17/06/09 @ 23:13
Hi AndreaR

Are you sending from your iPhone or is the problem related to receiving on your iPhone? See if a friend can send you an MMS and you can receive it or try sending one?

Regards
Robert
§ AndreaR said on : 17/06/09 @ 23:25
I'm a very basic user, so I never exchanged MMS with anyone.. I was interested in the feature just because of FFS mobile tickets which are sent as MMS. Tomorrow I will look for some friend with an iPhone and we'll make some experiments...
Thanks for the reply (btw: I have found this website: help.benm.at, but they also provide a very similar script)
§ MJA said on : 18/06/09 @ 09:53
I have an iPhone 2g unlocked.
I upgraded to OS 3.0 and loaded the tethering.mobieconfig file, rebooted, but no MMS option available in contact or photo sharing.
Does anyone knows what's wrong?
Thx.
§ Robert Turrall® said on : 18/06/09 @ 10:07
I received an MMS reply from a friend to whom I'd sent a test last night so all appears to be good with the Swisscom settings script as noted above.

If it's not working for you (AndreaR - is it working?) then your best bet may well be to go into a Swisscom shop - assuming they're not full of people with the same question!

Good luck :-)

PS. MMS aside, the new OS version brings a noticeable speed boost to the "old" 3G and adds other features which really elevate the platform further above other mobile devices. MMS should have always been a "so what?" item but was simply made into something more exotic by it's omission in the original OS
§ Robert Turrall® said on : 18/06/09 @ 10:10
@MJA - hm, no idea there, I'm afraid. By "unlocked" do you mean with Jailbreak or similar? If so, could be anything - it's probably best to search around to see if anybody else has the issue.

Good luck!
§ chris said on : 18/06/09 @ 10:19

Is there a a mobileconfig for an iphone on Orange in the UK?
§ Robert Turrall® said on : 18/06/09 @ 10:27
Hi Chris

I have no idea there. Try their website. The Swiss one has impressed me so, if the UK one is as good, you should find an answer.

Maybe it's automagical, as it was here?

Thanks for rating the post!

Robert
§ Robert Turrall® said on : 18/06/09 @ 18:12
Meanwhile, I've heard a lot about a great tool from BenM.at - with config profiles for providers from many countries, not just the Swisscom one I mention. Reports say that it works really well: Visit http://www.benm.at/HELP with your iPhone!
§ Chris Worth said on : 18/06/09 @ 18:32
Hi Robert I got the Tethering thing from http://www.iphone-notes.de/mobileconfig/

and it worked!! thanks for your help
§ Robert Turrall® said on : 18/06/09 @ 18:40
Hi Chris

Excellent. It seems that the sources for tethering/mms config scripts are becoming more widespread. Wonderful thing, the internet ;)

Tethering works with the link I mentioned too, by the way...

Robert
§ AndreaR said on : 19/06/09 @ 09:47
A quick update. I have uninstalled all profiles, and MMS with Swisscom still works. I have made a test by sending and receiving MMSs.
The only problem: the MMS mobile ticket by FFS does not work.
§ Robert Turrall® said on : 19/06/09 @ 10:31
@andreaR - cool! Not so sure about the SBB / FFS mobile ticket issue though, although I've always found their website to be particularly buggy anyway...
§ cobol said on : 22/06/09 @ 14:39

About the MMS mobile ticket by FFS: According to FFS-Site MMS mobile ticket is not possible for Iphone so far and will start in mid 2009.
§ Robert Turrall® said on : 22/06/09 @ 14:50
@cobol - thanks for the feedback, although I don't really follow why sending an MMS to iPhone would be any different to sending an MMS to any other device... it's an MMS. What did I miss here?

Should be soon anyway - it's mid 2009 now ;)
§ Roger Vacher said on : 27/06/09 @ 09:59
Making the choice between iphone 3gs with swisscom or orange switzerland. I spend 100 days a year roaming across europe and my phonebill via vodaphone typically comes to 3900-400 CHF per month. Any thoughts would be hugely appreciated! Roger
§ Robert Turrall® said on : 28/06/09 @ 13:11
@Roger: The normal data allowances are higher with Orange abos but I'm not sure about the data roaming charges. I have an abo with Swisscom, Liberty Mezzo, and pay an extra CHF 5,- per month for a data add-on - giving me data roaming Worldwide for about a third the normal price.

I also have an abo with Orange for CHF 44,- a month which has 1GB of data included but do not use roaming on this account as it's development iPhone.

You'd need to read up a bit on those plans to find out which is best.

Robert
§ Roger Vacher said on : 28/06/09 @ 22:04
Thanks Robert :-) much appreciated
Roger
§ Robert Turrall® said on : 29/06/09 @ 09:02
Hi Roger

My pleasure :-)

Robert
§ Simon said on : 26/07/09 @ 11:54

Hi Robert, thanks a lot for providing the link to this profile! Swisscom SIM cards don't allow manual MMS-settings on the one hand, on the other, unlocked iPhones are not supported - so Swisscom simply does not provide any solution for people in our situation, neither supportwise nor technically. This profile is the only one available so far to work for me. Thanks again!
§ megan said on : 30/12/09 @ 11:06

I cannot say I suffered much because of mms absence, but your article was of good help. Thanks!
§ marc said on : 07/01/10 @ 21:24

Also ich habe auch lange probiert um mein iphone 2g mit 3.1.2 und Swisscom Sim-karte MMS fähig zu machen. Hatte am Anfang das Problem, dass ich die apn nicht eingeben konnte bzw. diese nicht gespeichert wurden. Hier mein Vorgehen, dass schlussendlich klappte:
1. Profil von http://www.iphone-notes.de/mobileconfig/ auf meine E-mail geschickt, auf dem iphone geöffnet und installiert
2. Reboot
3. In Cydia "Native MMS iPhone 2G" installiert (Cydia-Quelle: http://cydia.ifoneguide.nl)
4. Reboot
5. Unter Einstellungen > Nachrichten > MMS-Messaging aktiviert
6. Unter Einstellungen > Allgemein > Netzwerk > Mobiles Datennetz bei MMSC "mms.natel.ch" und bei MMS-Proxy "192.168.210.002:8080" eingegeben.
7. Reboot
8. Fertig und MMS versenden

Mit dem SB-Settings habe ich Edge aktiviert. Ich denke auch dies ist ein muss.