Blyk runs into problems already

Ad funded MVNO Blyk, which started services in the UK Monday morning, is already running into technical issues, despite launching months later that expected.

At the launch event, the company said that it had put the extra time to good use, researching the ad market and testing its infrastructure. So it must be with some embarrassment that the company informed users that it was already suffering problems.

A posting on the Blyk website on Tuesday under the heading ‘technical issues’, warned users of the service that MMS picture message connections between Blyk and other UK networks, Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile, O2 and 3 “are still under construction”.

This means that picture messages between Blyk and other UK networks are not yet being delivered. “In the meantime, please use email to share photos with your friends,” the company said.

The incident is a strange one, especially as MMS capability on the user’s device is one of the requirements for joining the service. The news probably won’t go down too well with the users either – data charges aren’t covered under the free airtime allowance, so users will need to top up and expect to pay 99p per MB of data.

Leif Fagelstedt, COO and acting MD for Blyk UK told telecoms.com the decision to launch without MMS interconnect was simply a matter of priorities. As an ad-based service, Blyk understandably wanted to prioritise its ad serving platform on its own network first.

Besides, it’s not like anyone actually uses MMS anyway.