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At 36p a message to send a picture, the time for subsidised MMS messaging has passed. It's roughly three times the price of a standard SMS message, and with the ability to send pictures across all UK networks, the first real test of the services is about commence.

MMS allows users to send messages along with pictures and sound to

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other MMS-equipped handsets. Vodafone claims it has 390,000 customers with such handsets in the UK.

Lance Batchelor, Marketing Director of Vodafone UK says, 'We anticipate picture messaging will become as popular as texting. Strong sales of live! handsets have shown that there is increasing demand for multi-media services, with many of our customers regularly proving that pictures speak louder words. But picture messaging is only the beginning. Vodafone has plans to introduce many more compelling multimedia services including music, sport and video clips in the near future.'

At the last count, UK mobile users were sending 1.5b messages a month. But with subsidies stalled, and network restrictions lifted, the next tally should reveal the true popularity of these services.

O2 was the first network to offer inter-network MMS messaging in the UK, on 28 March.