Multimedia messaging struggles in europe


telecom operators hope that the new service will gain momentum

by david pringle




hannover, germany on his birthday last august, andrew finkelsteins wife bought him camera attachment for his new color-screen mobile phone.
at first, the 34-year-old financial trader in the city of london had some fun sending friends pictures via e-mail, but he hasnt used camera for the past few months. its like toy, then you move on to new toys, he says. there are zero practical applications.
that isnt what mobile-phone operators in europe and the u.s. want to hear.
the operators are engaged in a big push to persuade their customers to use their phones to send each other pictures and audio messages. multimedia messaging, or mms, as these services are known, is widely regarded as operators best hope of developing a major new source of revenue to add to voice calls and text mess...