If a picture is worth a thousand words, then why not use pictures to communicate with mobile users? In Sweden, the mobile operator Europolitan Vodafone is planning to do just that. It has tested technology from the Nasdaq-listed Comverse and plans to introduce it next month.

Customers will be able to send richer and, of course, more expensive messages. Instead of sending the text message: "U mst mt my new b-friend, Sven," the lovestruck teenager will be able to attach a photo of Sven using a phone with built-in camera. Holidaymakers will be able to send the view from the beach, with a message such as: "Come on in, the water's lovely."

Nokia, the mobile handset maker, also wants to jazz up messaging. Its Multimedia Terminal Gateway, out later this year, will enable mobile operators to deliver multi-media messages to existing phones, in the form of text messages saying there's a photo waiting on the web.

UK mobile operators including Vodafone, which owns 71% of Europolitan Holdings, have multimedia in mind, too. Orange will be selling a compact colour phone-cum-personal organiser with a plug-in digital camera and keyboard for SMS for £150 from June. Called the Hiptop, the device is made by Danger, a Californian start-up in which Orange has invested.

But multimedia messaging is not just about text and photos. Europolitan's customers will be able to attach a pre-recorded voice message to a photo or cartoon. Cartoons depicting moods were one of the most wanted features during the company's trial.

Staff wanted to be able to send a picture of a happy or sad face in reply to such questions as: "How's your day going?" Or of a glass of beer to indicate: "Let's meet for a drink after work."

Comverse commissioned a graphic designer to draw up a library of images available for the trial via Wap (Wireless application protocol). It is also possible, but tricky, on some of the newer personal organisers and handsets to annotate photos by writing on them as one can a postcard.

Though coy about how much users will pay for multimedia messaging, Europolitan's head of mobile internet Mikael Kluge, says: "It will cost about the same as a postcard and stamp."

"We're on the brink of becoming a picture society. Pictures can already be sent over i-mode [the Japanese mobile system], but what we have is more integrated with other kinds of messaging, such as SMS and email."

Lars Vestergaard, wireless manager at the market researchers IDC, is predicting 200,000 users of multimedia messaging in western Europe by the end of this year, rising to 27m in 2005.

Initially, 160 Europolitan customers, including a group of teenagers in the same class at school, and a local football team ,will be able to send multimedia messages. Most will be using GPRS, a higher speed mobile standard. But the technology will enable a message to get through to whatever handset or mobile service the recipient is using.

For example, if someone sends a cartoon from a Compaq iPaq colour personal organiser equipped for mobile to another with a monochrome screen, the colour will be stripped out.

If a photo is sent to a standard handset that can't display photos, the recipient will get a message saying there's an illustration waiting on the web. And, in theory, even richer mobile messaging with a lot of streaming video and music should be possible when third generation (3G) services arrive - although that may be years away.