Given the stellar rise in SMS usage since inter-carrier messaging was introduced in April 2000, this revenue potential would certainly be proportionally replicated on Australian mobile networks, particularly those enabling EMS messages between their customers. A built-in video camera, for example, would allow a user to send a short video clip to a friend as the visual equivalent of a voicemail message. But with the benefits of interoperability indisputable, it's clear that NMM and MMS will likely converge into a single next-generation messaging standard. But with SMS continuing to worm its way into every facet of everyday life, such a business case should become easier and easier to formulate. I'm still disgusted that my analogue handset was rendered useless by government decree, and I'll never, ever buy another mobile phone until the technology is as stable as a garden hose.
People pay for that now.
Look at video, mags, web and soon to be mobiles. We all get naughty emails and I am sure that the carriers won't mind the extra traffic. Screen display quality of pictures will be the decider. The same old hype and the same old projections of multibillion dollar revenues. The folks at Razorfish very clearly laid it out a year ago when they said that business use of phone messaging is not the brass ring, it is consumer applications that will make phone companies rich.