After many years, Vodafone is putting an end to a service that many people are sure to know and have used.
The word SMS alone makes many people nostalgic. The short message service – SMS stands for “Short Message Service” – was the means of communication of choice for many before Internet providers such as WhatsApp increasingly replaced it. One of the reasons for this is that long messages with SMS are a problem. Also, it is not possible to send emojis or images with the service. For this you need the service MMS – “Multimedia Messaging Service”. And that is exactly what is to be abolished at Vodafone.
Off for MMS at Vodafone
In 2022 SMS celebrated its 30th birthday. Telecommunications provider Vodafone took this as an opportunity to announce the discontinuation of SMS brother MMS. Because while a few million people in Germany still send messages via SMS, that no longer seems to apply to MMS.
From January 2023, the service will end accordingly; at least for Vodafone customers. Too many send their pictures and videos for free these days via messengers like WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal. It is true that sending an MMS message does not use the mobile data network. An MMS costs between 30 and 50 cents.
Are other providers following suit?
It is not yet finally known whether Telekom or O2 will follow suit. Telekom has already announced that it intends to continue using MMS until at least 2024. O2 has not yet commented.
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Accordingly, it is still possible to send MMS with these providers – also to Vodafone customers, by the way. Noisy Tel tariff They will then receive a notification via SMS with a one-time password. It should then be possible to view the MMS online and even download it.