Camera phones unable to link up

Consumers still cannot send photographs or multimedia messages between Ireland's two largest mobile phone networks, eight months after Vodafone and O2 began selling camera phones.

Technical difficulties posed by the mobile handsets used by both operators, and other network inter-operability issues, have so far stopped consumers sending messages to a rival firm's mobile.

Analysts said yesterday the delay could be costing the firms millions of euro in missed revenue. It could also be dampening the take-up of multimedia messaging at a time when some public buildings and workplaces are banning camera phones.

"People are used to sending text messages to mobiles regardless of the network. There is a danger people will get frustrated with multimedia messaging if they can't communicate with friends using different mobile networks," said Mr Ian McDonald, senior consultant with the consultancy, Mason Communications.

He said this was particularly problematic in the Republic, where the market was split roughly half and half between O2 and Vodafone. Multimedia messaging was introduced last November by the operators in a pre-Christmas campaign, which tipped camera phones as the next big thing in the mobile industry.

Senior industry sources believe 100,000 people have bought one of the new phones, which include an inbuilt camera that can take digital pictures. But both O2 and Vodafone have not published any recent statistics to show the amount of multimedia messages that users are sending.

Both firms said yesterday they were still working to link up their mobile networks for multimedia messaging, but could give no definite date for when interoperability would be introduced. A Vodafone spokeswoman said the company was working with O2 to find a solution to the problem.

Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that Samsung, the Korean mobile phone manufacturer, has banned the use of camera phones at its own facilities. The firm plans to ban the use of the phones at its electronics factories from July 14th because of concerns about industrial espionage.