Method and system to facilitate media-content delivery

A Multimedia Messaging Service Center (MMSC) comprising:

• at least one a network communication interface;
• at least one processing unit;
• at least one non-transitory data storage;
• and
• program instructions stored in the at least one non-transitory data storage and executable by the one or more processing units of the at least one processing unit to carry out operations for enabling Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) message delivery to a recipient device, the operations including:
• receiving and storing MMS message content that is to be delivered to the recipient device,
• responsive to at least the receiving and storing by the MMSC of the MMS message content that is to be delivered to the recipient device, sending to the recipient device an MMS-notification message carrying an address of the MMS message content stored at the MMSC, and then receiving a reply indicating that the recipient device received the MMS-notification message,
• detecting that, after the receiving of the reply, (i) at least a predefined threshold amount of time has passed and (ii) the MMSC has not yet received from the recipient device a request to download the MMS message content, and
• responsive to at least the detecting, sending to the recipient device a data-service-trigger message that triggers turning on data service of the recipient device, wherein turning on the data service of the recipient device enables MMS-message delivery to the recipient device.