The GSM  or 2G digital telephones that we use today have very little capacity to carry additional digital 'data', and the multimedia available (if not too elaborate a word for it) is via an SMS message.   SMS is, nevertheless, wildly popular among young people accross Europe. 

EBU Members have used SMS for feedback, and for competitions, for many programmes.  EBU Members, for example, in several countries allow viewers to vote via SMS for the Eurovision Song Contest. 

An enhanced version of the GSM system, 'GPRS', is available in some parts of Europe, and it provides more capacity for multimedia.  This is sometimes called 2.5G (generation) digital telephony.  There is a system for carrying multimedia (such as pictures of the sender) via GPRS called MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service).

In principle the technology is available for digital telephone systems with even greater data capacity - and these are called UMTS or 3G (generation) systems.  When introduced these will allow quite large amounts of data to be delivered to mobile phones - though the amount will depend on whether the user is stationary or moving. 

For moving users the capacity might be about the same as with an 'ISDN' telephone line today.  This will allow quite sophisticated entertainment services to be delivered to the mobile phone. 

It may be that 3G telephones will provide, news clips, sports clips, or trailers to entertainment that can be viewable later via broadcast channels, or sometimes even longer events in their own right - provided the viewer is ready to pay the cost of the call. 

The future of media delivery is a array of options for delivering multimedia to the viewer or listener, either via broadcast channels or via 'point to point' channels.  Whatever the future brings, EBU Members will be in the forefront of technology and creativity with new media.  This is part of their public service mission.