Overview
- Deutsche Telekom and 1&1 announced the shutdown on Tuesday and will stop sending and receiving MMS across their networks on 30 June 2026.
- Telefónica Deutschland (O2) will keep MMS working through 30 June 2026 and says it will announce its plan for after that date, while Vodafone Germany ended MMS in January 2023.
- After 30 June customers on the affected networks will no longer be able to send or receive MMS, SMS will remain available, and attempts to send images by MMS will likely produce errors or fail to deliver.
- Operators and vendors point to RCS (Rich Communication Services) and third‑party messengers as replacements, but RCS has practical caveats: device or SIM changes can route messages to an old device for up to 30 days unless users deregister or re‑activate RCS.
- MMS never scaled because of high per‑message fees and strict file limits (about 300 KB); carriers also cited savings on license fees, infrastructure, device testing and customer support as reasons for the retirement, echoing similar shutdowns in Switzerland in 2023–24.