AT&T customers can finally get their multimedia messaging on come the end of September, according to a company spokesman speaking to TUAW’s Mel Martin today. The official go-live date is Sept. 25, which falls only a tad short of the company’s original late summer prediction for the service.

Spokesman Brad Mays ascribes the lateness of MMS’ arrival to the unmatched size of AT&T’s iPhone user base. The U.S. provider does have far more subscribers than any other carrier globally, and its network has shown signs of strain already. No doubt significant infrastructure build or reconfiguration was required to enable MMS support.

MMS will be enabled via a carrier settings software update on Sept. 25, which users will be able to download by connecting their iPhone to iTunes and approving the update when prompted. No actual iPhone firmware update should be required at that time.

Mays also comments briefly on tethering, but sadly, only to dash your hopes, my American friends:

As for tethering, by its nature, this function could exponentially increase traffic on the network, and we need to ensure that some of our current upgrades are in place before we can deliver the expanded functionality with the excellent performance that customers expect. We expect to offer tethering in the future.

Well, maybe not dash exactly, but definitely forestall indefinitely. The activation of MMS will likely act as a test for AT&T to see just how much pressure its network can sustain at this point, so it would be unwise for it to make any solid predictions about when it’ll be able to offer tethering until those results are in.

Check out TUAW’s post for the full-length press release from Mays.

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The study dealt with failure rates for a sample pool of over 15,000 new phones covered by SquareTrade warranties, which are after-market additional coverage packages. By the numbers, the iPhone had a 5.6 percent rate of malfunction, compared to BlackBerry’s 11.9 percent and the Palm Treo at 16.2 percent. Problems which counted as malfunctions according to the study included lockups and freezing, battery issues, Bluetooth/camera problems, antenna/case defects, screen/input method failures, call quality and power issues.

SquareTrade also projects failure rates up to the two-year mark. The two-year numbers are projections and not measured data because the iPhone had only been available for 15 months at the time the study was conducted. Projected totals see the gap between the iPhone and BlackBerry handsets decrease somewhat, but Apple’s device still comes away with the best score at 11.3 percent. BlackBerry is predicted at 14.3 percent and Palm comes in last at a fairly high 21.0 percent.

The iPhone’s second year numbers are much higher than both the BlackBerry and Palm devices, and this is where the study becomes questionable. SquareTrade is, after all, in the business of selling warranties for handsets, and it is in their best interest to predict a sharp increase in failures during the second year of ownership of a device which many people are just about to begin their second year of owning.

That said, the study’s findings that are based on firm, measurable data are interesting. The iPhone bosts a significant advantage in call quality, for instance, which is somewhat contrary to the persistent complaints of dropped calls over 3G.

Another area where the iPhone wins big is in battery problems, where both the BlackBerry and the Palm have more than double the number of complaints. Despite burning through a charge so quickly, Apple’s battery is apparently consistent and dependable.

All three companies posted high numbers in touchpad/screen/keypad problems, although Apple still came out lowest of all. Of problems reported, the vast majority of the iPhone’s were related to the touchscreen, which does not bode well for the durability of the relatively new interface tech over the life of the device.

The full study is available here (PDF) from SquareTrade.

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