It's an image designed to warm the heart of the most hardheaded wireless service provider: live TV delivered to millions of handsets via streaming media, the ultimate application of the unwired age. For the customer, however, there is a variety of services and approaches that capitalize on the basket of technologies known as mobile multimedia.

Service providers need to listen closely to their customers, rather than to their own hearts, if they intend to build a successful mobile media business. Customers are still mulling their commitments to live TV over mobile phone. They are still evaluating the need for audio and video streaming. And they are on the lookout for useful mobile applications that could make the whole venture worthwhile.

Analysts are bullish about the future of mobile video, even if they are still uncertain about how the business model will play out. Strategy Analytics predicts that the global market for mobile video content will reach $4.6 billion by 2008, with mobile music sales reaching $2.2 billion. But the firm's numbers include both streamed and downloaded content, with streaming representing a relatively small fraction of the total. Operators' thinking should be similarly cautious about mobile multimedia of all types.