MMSC (Multimedia Messaging Service Center) — Definition

The MMSC, or Multimedia Messaging Service Center, is the server address your phone uses to send and receive picture and group messages.

Regular texts and picture messages travel through different systems. The MMSC is the part of your APN settings dedicated to the picture-and-group-message side, and it usually looks like a web address.

In practice

When your normal texts work but photos refuse to send, the MMSC is the first thing to check. A single wrong character stops MMS cold while leaving everything else fine. Each carrier's APN page on this site lists its exact MMSC.