UK mobile operator mmO2, which currently trades as BT Cellnet, has signed a deal with France’s Freever to provide its users with SMS chat services. Cellnet has been trialing the service, called Txt Chat Rm, for four months.
The service – already used by all three of France’s mobile operators – will allow Cellnet’s customers to enter, search and post to discussion forums and anonymous chatrooms using SMS messages. The partners also plan to add video messaging and other enhanced messaging tools in the future.
It comes at an interesting time for mmO2. The company, spun off from BT a few months ago, is planning to drop the BT Cellnet brand and rebrand itself as O2 later this year. Part of its stated strategy is to increase data revenues to over 20% by 2004. Initiatives like Txt Chat Rm can only help this strategy.
