The BBC is linking up with Vodafone in a pilot scheme to develop multi-media news services for people on the move.

Mobile phone users will be able to receive text, audio and video items from the multi-award winning BBC News Online.

Using a digital Vodafone, people will soon be able to receive continually-updated news, including sport, entertainment and business via their text messaging service.

There are also plans to allow customers to personalise the news they receive. They may wish to receive items on a particular subject or follow a breaking news story.

In the near future, people will be able to receive graphics and audio clips.

By 2002 a new generation of mobile phones will enable high quality video clips to be sent to handsets, with voice-activated commands.

Chief executive of BBC News Tony Hall welcomed the deal.

"We want to make our journalism available to people wherever they are and whenever they want it. This landmark deal, with the biggest mobile phone operator, will help achieve our strategic aim of becoming the leading provider of news in this exciting new market," he said.

BBC News Online is one of the world's leading providers of news on the internet, featuring 300 stories a day and an archive of 400,000 items. It has won 11 awards, including two Baftas, the British Press Award and the Prix Italia.

Mobile internet

Some analysts expect mobile phones to replace the personal computer as the main delivery channel for the internet over the next decade.

"Vodafone envisages that in the future more people will be watching the news via their mobile phone than at home in front of their TV set," said Vodafone's Alan Harper.

"Vodafone's agreement with the BBC marks the first step on the road of true mobile and multimedia

Vodafone Airtouch is the world's biggest mobile phone operator with 31m customers worldwide. It already has 2m customers using its text messaging service in the UK.

A rush of deals by other companies have been announced to spur the development of mobile internet services.

BT Cellnet has teamed up with Freeserve, the UK internet service provider, while Orange uses the ITN text news service. Reuters has also begun trials of its internet news service.

Rival technologies

The rapid convergence of mobile phones bringing together the internet, television and radio is being driven by the development of new technologies, such as the wireless application protocol (WAP), which allows a seamless connection between internet servers and mobile phones.

The next generation of mobile phones will be far more sophisticated, allowing multimedia on demand.

A fierce battle is being waged in the business world over the control of the new technology.

Microsoft has teamed up with mobile phone manufacturer Ericsson to challenge Psion for the software to run multimedia applications on mobile phones.

Meanwhile, mobile phone operators like Vodafone have been the darlings of the stock market, and are looking to extend their empires.

Vodafone is already the second most valuable company on the London stock market, and is in the midst of a hostile takeover bid for Germany's Mannesmann, which owns mobile phone companies in Italy, Germany and the UK.