Microsoft, which owns Hotmail and runs it as part of its Internet services unit MSN, said in August it wanted to give its 30 million European Hotmail users the opportunity to receive selected email via strings of text messages.
Although the service has been trailed successfully in Denmark and Switzerland and will be rolled out commercially there early in the new year, Microsoft will have to wait for wireless operators elsewhere to install new billing software.
"It could take several months," said Judy Gibbons, European director of MSN.
Microsoft had hoped to roll out the service early in 2002. It believes the service could become a huge revenue generator in Europe, where communicating via text messages has become a way of life for young people and is also catching on with others.