MMO2 to Launch MMS

LONDON -- mmO2 is set to launch the most customer friendly and comprehensivemultimedia messaging service yet in its four territories (UK,Netherlands, Ireland and Germany) during October. The service, called O2 media messaging, will be available to both pre-and post-pay customers and offers immediate roaming across mmO2's fournetworks. O2 media messaging will include a strong portfolio ofvalue-added services accessible via the O2 portal such as applicationsthat enable customers to store and manipulate their photos - to addspeech bubbles or change friends into cartoons for example - and createand send media messages online. In addition, customers will be able toupload images to their personal 'photo album' as well as downloadcontent from the multimedia library - including pictures and sounds. Similar to current text message services, all pricing for O2 mediamessaging will be 'event-based' (i.e. customers will pay for eachmessage sent) with price per media message from €0.39. Pricing will varyby country dependent on local market conditions - see table below. Inthe UK, customers may choose to 'bolt on' O2 media messaging to theirexisting tariff, reducing the price per media message to £0.28 (€0.43).O2 customers will not pay to receive media messages 1. Kent Thexton, chief marketing and data officer, mmO2, said: "O2 mediamessaging is a natural evolution of the strong SMS trend, in which wehave a leading position in key markets. We believe that O2 mediamessaging provides a good customer experience from launch. The serviceand pricing is simple and intuitive, we offer the choice of pre- andpost-pay and our 'walk out working' promise ensures that our customerswill be able to use O2 media messaging as soon as they receive theirhandset." mmO2 plc