Dubbed T-Mobile Picture Messaging, the service allows subscribers to create and combine personal images, sound clips or personal voice recordings and text into a single multimedia message and send it from their mobile to another mobile or e-mail address.

Clent Richardson, chief sales and marketing officer, T-Mobile, explained this service is an example of bringing our ‘Get more service’ brand promise to life" by allowing customer to capture their special moments in pictures as well as sounds.

The service is available on the Sony Ericsson T68i with CommuniCam for 199.99, which includes subscription to the T-Mobile Picture Messaging service. Customers are charged a monthly fee 20.00 that covers the connection to the service and an allowance of 10 MB to send and receive picture messages with the T68i phone.

Being the first, T-Mobile’s wireless picture service, according to industry observers, is laying the foundation for a price war as other U.K. networks such O2, Orange, Vodafone, and Hutchison 3G roll out their picture messaging services by the end of the year. The price issue will, more than likely, focus on the handsets, which are more expensive than customers are accustomed to paying.

European network operators, who have spent billions on 3G technology, hope that MMS will drive customer up take of 3G devices and services by becoming as successful as its predecessor, text messaging.

According to research firm Ovum, by 2007, mobile users in the U.K. will send over 35 billion multimedia messages during 2007 and the market will be worth over $5-billion. Thus there is hope yet for cash-strapped operators.