AT&T has announced an official date for the arrival of multimedia messaging on the iPhone: Sept. 25, a few days past the official end of summer. Thus, the company is breaking its promise to deliver MMS by "late summer" by a few days.

AT&T confirmed the date in an e-mail provided to Wired.com, in which it explained that the delay was due to enabling equipment in data centers across the country to process iPhone MMS signaling and optimizing the network to prepare for record volumes of MMS traffic driven by iPhones.

"We know many of our iPhone customers are eager for an update on our rollout schedule for Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)," an AT&T spokesman said. "We’ve been working for the past several months to prepare our systems and network to ensure the best possible experience with MMS when it launches – and today we can announce that launch date: September 25 for iPhone 3G and 3GS customers. MMS will be enabled through a software update on that day."

Apple initially previewed MMS for iPhone in a March event demonstrating the iPhone 3.0 operating system. Then during the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Apple delivered the news that MMS support would be available for 29 carriers as soon as the iPhone 3.0 OS launched June 17 — but not for AT&T customers until “late summer.” This announcement inspired many boos in the audience. Months later it led to a lawsuit filed by an iPhone customer who alleged Apple and AT&T misled customers by heavily marketing iPhone MMS and failing to deliver.

AT&T in June issued a statementclaiming the delay for MMS was unrelated to AT&T's 3G network.

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Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com*