Landlines to get text appeal - smileys and all

NEWS BT is hoping to launch the next big thing in texting - SMS between fixed and mobile phones - and is bringing out a range of handsets and signing up some big name operators to help.

Vodafone, T-Mobile, BT Mobile and 3's customers can all send texts to BT's specially adapted handsets and BT says more operators will join in soon. Texts from fixed lines will also be able to reach Orange and Virgin Mobile users and other fixed phones.

For those without the text-enabled fixed line phones, the message is converted into electronic speech and left as a voicemail. It can even translate smileys and emoticons into speech, apparently.

Texting is still one of the mobile operators' chief cash cows, bringing in around 15 per cent of revenues.

According to figures from the Mobile Data Association, mobile-to-mobile text numbers are still growing. The numbers from April show over an average of 70 million texts a day were sent - an increase of 26 per cent compared to the corresponding month last year.

While no one expects fixed-to-mobile SMS to draw in the same huge revenues as mobile-to-mobile, there's still a place for the emerging technology.

Analyst house Frost and Sullivan recently predicted fixed-to-mobile would take off.

Frost and Sullivan estimates that Western Europe has between three million and five million fixed line SMSers, each sending two or three messages a month. While that doesn't compare to the two billion mobile texts sent in April, Frost and Sullivan is optimistic about the growth potential for fixed-to-mobile texting.

The analysts predict fixed SMS traffic will increase by between 15 and 20 per cent per month and subscriber numbers will grow at about the same rate.