Submitted by Mike Grenville on Mon, 23 Aug 2004 17:15

Figures from Telecom Italia show that fixed line messaging services are taking off in Italy

The Telecom Italia group released its figures for the first half of 2004 show the core wireline business actually managed to grow its revenues by 1.3%, defying the trend among Western European incumbents.

One of the factors in this was Telecom Italia's focus on reinventing the fixed line through innovative value-added services. This includes Tutto 4* and fixed line Chat SMS offerings that 1.2 million customers have subscribed to - 103.7% up on the first quarter of 2004.

Sales of Tutto 4 information services and ChatSMS is being driven by the take-up of new generation Aladino DECT terminals, of which more than 500,000 had been sold by the end of June 2004.

Launched in December 2003, the Aladino phone (pictured) converts the old fixed-line telephone into a terminal with a colour display, icon-based menus, a vast range of ringtones, games and predictive text SMS messaging. As many as 200 numbers can be transferred directly from a mobile telephone SIM card to the Aladino phone.

Messages cost 3 eurocents to send to another fixed-line telephone (including VAT) and 10 eurocents (including VAT) to send to a mobile phone.

The special Chat SMS subscription package enables customers to send an unlimited number of text messages to fixed-line telephones for just one euro per month.