“There’s no need to wait for GPRS or 3G technologies to create value-added services to generate new revenues,” says Nigel Waters, Asia-Pacific MD for Sonera SmartTrust. “Operators can do it today with their 2G networks, using SMS as the delivery mechanism.”

MMS may be a sexier proposition to operators, but it’s also going to take time to ramp up into something significant, says Boudewijn Pesch, Asia Pacific MD for CMG Wireless Data Solutions, who doesn’t expect MMS to really hits its stride until 2005.

Meanwhile, SMS has already gone beyond sending text messages to friends. “Information on demand and infotainment services are already being done in some markets, and operators are also leveraging these for text games, and competitions,” said Waters.

Operators also don’t have to wait for GPRS to launch m-commerce services, says SmarTrust CEO Antti Vasara – depending on how you define m-commerce.

“Look at things like ringtone downloads and logo downloads,” he says. “That’s m-commerce at it’s best. M-commerce will be most successful with soft products. When GPRS comes in, Java games will be another m-commerce success. I find it hard to believe anyone will use their handsets to buy books or in-line skates.”

Such SMS-based services emerged in Europe a couple of years ago, but are only just starting to appear in the Asia-Pacific, says Marie Holmes, regional MD for Logica Asia.

“SMS interoperability came a bit later for Asia compared to Europe, so it’s early days for most operators here in deploying SMS value-added services like competitions and interactive TV promotions,” Holmes says.

Another argument for SMS-based VAS is that it gets customers started early on non-voice offerings, says Holmes of Logica. “If you start VAS early with 2G, that makes for a foundation where you can grow customers into more advanced wireless data services later.”

However, Paul Rogers, Logica’s mobile networks market development director, notes that customers aren’t the only ones who need conditioning for wireless data usage.

“Operators have to change from thinking of themselves as voice providers and think in terms of being content providers, even if they get that content from third parties,” he says.

Rogers adds that operators and handset manufacturers can help build customers up to MMS and 2.5G/3G services by remembering that end-users are not industry insiders.

“Operators have to stop calling these things GPRS and WAP and IM and MMS,” Rogers insists. “They’re just confusing customers who don’t know what those terms mean.”