MMS - mobile's massive stupidity?

The people of Cannes must be used to corporate excess by now, and this year's 3GSM World Congress will barely move the needle on their binge-ometer.

The yachts in the Vieux Port have all hoisted the banners of the vendors that hired them for the week, and the Croisette is thronged by tired-looking men in suits but there's little else to disturb the picture-postcard calm of the Cote D'Azur's conference capital.

Yet it's been a let's-get-down-to-it-and-stop-mucking-around kind of show, for an industry that realises it must start to deliver.

The only whiff of hype in the air, in fact, comes from people punting Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), souped-up SMS which allows virtual postcards to be sent from (and to) mobile phones.

The handset makers are plugging it enthusiastically and the operators are talking it up but no one else seems convinced.

In the words of one senior employee of an extremely large software company, who would be keel-hauled from his corporate gin palace if quoted by name: "Well, the operators can't talk about the debt, can they? They have to talk about something. Last year it was WAP, this year it's MMS."

MMS is meant to take the advantages of SMS, add the ability to send pictures and video, then fill up wireless networks with lucrative traffic.

The key proponent of this drive is Nokia, It's new MMS phone, the 7650, is a lovely object, pleasant to look at and easy to use - a worthy entrant to the Nokia museum of Solid Industrial Design. And if it's a bit heavy, well, who wouldn't be if they'd swallowed a camera?

Still, at E550 (£336) it's expensive and the mobile networks are not likely to subsidise it. The cost of sending a message is meant to be "around the cost of a postcard and a stamp", but that's around a euro - still a lot for a low-resolution photo.

Few people went out to buy SMS phones. They just bought whatever phone they liked and could afford and found out about texting with the first flashing envelope on their screen.

SMS was relatively cheap and the technology was ubiquitous. MMS won't be cheap and wide handset penetration will take time.

Meanwhile, about to hit the market are PDAs allowing people to send pictures back and forth with email or an internet browser instead of buying a dedicated MMS handset.

What need MMS, then? Handset manufacturers are all touting it and Genie is pushing it too. But we'll be sticking to postcards for now. How about one of the Vieux Port for starters?

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