Orange, mmO2 and T-Mobile have begun to correct one of the dirty little secrets of the widely hyped Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) technology: that it does not work across different companies' networks.

MMS, marketed by Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and mmO2 under names such as picture messaging or photo messaging, was introduced with great fanfare in the latter part of last year, as part of the network operators' plans for recouping billions of pounds spent on next-generation technology. But the initial services could not send images directly to friends using competitors' networks.

European mobile phone companies have spent about 100bn euros, or about £65m, on licences and technology for 3G networks, which will bring greater capacity and speeds high enough for video communications. Handsets with colour screens, tiny cameras and MMS capabilities were heavily touted in the run-up to Christmas, despite the lack of network interconnection.

However, a new report argues that MMS revenues are unlikely to add up to the panacea that mobile operators are hoping for.

The report from Datamonitor, released on Monday, predicts that the MMS market will grow at a rate of 388 percent per year for four years, but will still only be worth $4.9bn (or about £3bn) per year, by the end of 2006.