So AT&T has finally set the date for when it will enable iPhone users to send MMS messages (test messages with photo/video/audio content). That date is September 25th. TUAW has a good article up about this which includes quotes from AT&T representative Brad Mays.

These are some of my favorite talking points:

We support more iPhone customers than any other carrier in the world so we took the time necessary to make sure our network is ready to handle what we expect will be a record volume of MMS traffic. [...] The unique capabilities and high usage of the iPhone’s multimedia capabilities required us to work on our network MMS architecture to carry the expected record volumes of MMS traffic and ensure an excellent experience from Day One. [...] We’re riding the leading edge of smartphone growth that’s resulted in an explosion of traffic over the AT&T network. Wireless use on our network has grown an average of 350 percent year-over-year for the past two years, and is projected to continue at a rapid pace in 2009 and beyond. The volume of smartphone data traffic the AT&T network is handling is unmatched in the wireless industry.

This illustrated my earlier post about AT&T (and the other cellular service providers) not being ready to handle the demands of data-rich smart devices on their networks. If it took this long for AT&T to be ready to handle MMS from the iPhone what will happen as the market expands? Are the other cellular providers learning from AT&T’s mistakes, or are they going to encounter the same problems when the iPhone or other smartphones begin to saturate their networks?