BERNE, Switzerland—Swisscom Mobile said it will begin offering multimedia messaging services on June 3, following MMS launches from Telecom Italia Mobile and Vodafone Telecel in Portugal last week.
Swisscom Mobile will provide the service free during its launch phase until the end of September. Beginning in October, MMS billing will be volume based, with an MMS message of up to 10 kilobits costing around 50 cents.
“We want to provide an additional incentive to use this attractive, trend-setting service,” said Urs Schaeppi, head of connectivity services at Swisscom Mobile.
The Sony Ericsson T68i is the only terminal currently available for the service, with additional phones to be rolled out in the third quarter. MMS content will be available on the operator’s mobile portal in a few months.
Westel in Hungary has also launched MMS services, and Vodafone D2 in Germany, Oni in Portugal and Telenor in Norway intend to go live with MMS this year.
