In an ongoing bid to create a "must-have" strategy for new data services, operators are constantly on the lookout for the richer mobile experience. As MMS has just recently been launched in Europe, it's far too early to predict its real future. Sadly, initial handset sales aren't anything to write home about. However, this shouldn't be an inference to consumers not wishing to take up new mobile data services such as MMS.

Network operator TV advertising has yet to reach critical mass. MMS needs to be promoted more, and educational marketing needs to be stepped up before consumers can identify with the service and see where it might fit into their everyday lives. Of course the text-hungry youth market is fast becoming the operators' key test audience for new jazzy services such as MMS, but cost inhibits this age range from taking it up in a big way. Product pricing needs to be ironed out as well.

That aside, MMS, in one guise or another, seems set to supersede text messaging in the years to come. Now that it's here, the industry is on the lookout for the next big thing. Mobile video streaming seems to be it.

The underlying success of this embryonic industry is compression. Just as high quality, high compression of Internet video was required, mobile video needs the same and a whole lot more. Connection speeds and bandwidth-led tariffs mean consumers will be paying for what they receive. Therefore, a typical consumer will want the experience, but won't want to pay a great deal for it.

From an operator's perspective, it's in their interest to be able to safely deliver a service without tying up network capacity, and to offer mobile video en masse, at the right price. It's really a next-generation product for a next-generation market.

Three years ago, you would have thought that anyone talking about mobile phone video streaming would have "visionary" somewhere in his or her job title. Slowly, but surely, players are creeping in and beginning to make noise about achievements that look promising. Technological advance is most certainly there; commercial viability, however, may be something else.

Research shows that there's a huge gap in public expectations of new mobile technologies, especially concerning video streaming. Belief is that wireless video will be, at a minimum, VHS quality.

Reality will be quite different from the outset. Even when we get to the point where mobile video streaming becomes a commercial viability, what content will be king, if any? Analysts are predicting news and gaming riding shotgun on the new platform. We shouldn't kid ourselves. The potential is huge.

Bandwidth for multiplayer gaming designed for the handset is a cry we have heard for awhile now from games houses. News giants like CNN and CNBC will undoubtedly be working with technology companies to get their brand across to what arguably is a new audience for them. Media owners are chomping at the bit, waiting for this to happen. The advertising industry won't know what has hit them.

But let's put things into perspective. GPRS as a bearer won't comfortably deliver video. Next generation is where video streaming will see realization. That video streaming will be the savior of operators' next-generation licenses might be an extreme statement, but there is no doubt that, because of the technology it uses, it will be a high revenue earner for them from both direct and indirect customers. We wait with bated breath.