Think your mobile phone can do it all? Think again, reports Brisbane’s Courier Mail newspaper this week.

According to the experts, you have only glimpsed what's possible.

They predict warring phone companies will launch a throng of new services, faster networks and drop their prices to lure you in this year, while manufacturers add more features to already multi-tasking mobile phones.

Expect more television-to-go, more portable live sport, a greater selection of music at the press of a button and even maps and directions available in your pocket.

At the heart of this innovation and activity is the next generation of mobile technology. All four Australian phone companies now own 3G (third-generation) mobile phone networks, with some boasting even more advanced technology.

And Australian consumers are taking note. Multimedia mobile phone users are expected to double this year after more than tripling to almost 3 million Australians in 2006.

Warren Chaisatien, managing director of research firm Telsyte, says the "sudden burst" in 3G users last year happened after Telstra, Vodafone and Optus joined 3 Mobile in offering the next-generation mobile phone technology.

He says even more Australians upgraded their mobile phones to 3G after Telstra launched its Next G network in October last year and began a public education campaign.

"The technology had a relatively slow start in Australia but it really accelerated after Telstra launched Next G last year, which is technically 3.5G technology," he says.

"Now when people change mobile phones or when their contract ends, they are thinking about 3G right away. No one is going back to 2.5G any more."

The main benefit of 3G technology is that it allows mobile phones to download content at high speeds. For this reason, 3G mobile phone users can easily grab music, video clips, live television, maps, movie times, sports updates, news and more in seconds rather than minutes.

Some telcos, including Telstra and 3 Mobile, have also launched 3.5G technology, called HSDPA or high-speed downlink packet access, which offers even faster downloads.

3 Mobile first launched 3G technology in Australia in 2003 but it proved slow to take off until Telstra, Optus and Vodafone joined the race last year. Chaisatien says 750,000 Australians had adopted the technology by December 2005, but that figure jumped to 2.99 million this year or 14.5 per cent of all Australian mobile phone users. But it is this year, he says, that will prove the turning point for 3G mobile phones.

"By the end of 2007 we expect to have 6.2 million 3G users," he says. "The reason is that all of Telstra's CDMA phone users will be migrated to 3G because they will shut down that network. There are more than 1.5 million CDMA users today. On top of that there are another 1.5 million people using 2.5G phones whose contracts will expire and they will move to 3G."

Chaisatien says the result of this migration will be a war over consumers.

"We're going to see a lot of campaigns and promotions now that everyone is moving," he says. "We'll see a lot more devices, a lot more applications and 3G carriers will start offering more pre-paid services which they haven't done in the past.

"Pricing will become cheaper and a lot more resellers, like Dodo and Boost Mobile and small brands, will come in and make highly competitive offers."

Some of the new 3G mobile phones that will launch this year were revealed at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona last month.

Sony Ericsson revealed a 3G music phone with a touchscreen and 4Gb of storage (W950i), Nokia launched a new fold-out computer phone with a 3.2-megapixel camera and full qwerty keypad (E90), and Samsung showed off a 5-megapixel camera phone primed for high-speed, HSDPA downloads (F700). The new BlackBerry features GPS navigational technology.

When it comes to the content used on those new phones, Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association chief executive Chris Althaus says Australians are making use of many 3G services but two things in particular were driving the technology. "Australians love music and sport and downloading and browsing this content on 3G handsets is proving very popular," he says.

Mobile TV has also received a makeover recently, with Telstra making 12 Foxtel channels available on Next G phones, Vodafone adding more made-for-mobile content, channels and even a British soap opera to handsets, while 3 Mobile's menu features live cricket, entertainment and news channels, and Optus continues to offer live transmissions of SBS, ABC and CNN.

Chaisatien says the phone companies are likely to add many more services to their repertoire this year to entice customers, and that could include mobile TV that is broadcast to handsets, like television, rather than downloaded. Broadcast mobile TV is available in South Korea and parts of Europe.

Chaisatien says even though Australia now has the latest mobile phone networks, more services of this kind and other content is needed to ensure consumers make the most of the technology.

Mobile phone users in other countries, he says, are already using 3G services more often than Australian users even though they have had the technology for a shorter period of time.

"It does come down to education as well," Chaisatien says.

"So far everyone has been focused on the technology roadmap and a lot of mumbo jumbo like HSDPA and EVDO, but very little focus has been on how this will change the way you do things or how you can interact with these services.

"That will have to change."