Instant Messaging initiative

Instant Messaging initiative
The GSM Association has launched an IM initiative to reach interoperability agreements between 15 mobile phone operators, including China Mobile, France Telecom, Telefonica , TeliaSonera, Telecom Italia Mobile, Turkcell, Vodafone and some Indian mobile operators. The operators agree on basic initiating party pays principle (not generally used in North America). Text messaging continues to make up a majority of data revenues for mobile operators. Under this initiative, more than 700m mobile users can eventually have access to an IM global service. Vodafone and Orange (FT) signed an agreement to be the first multi-national mobile operators to launch Instant Messaging interoperability.