By: Katie Allen | Source: business.guardian.co.uk

Next week at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona mobile phone networks will discuss creating their own mobile phone search engine to rival Google and Yahoo. Big players including Telefonica-owned O2 and Vodafone  will consider the merits of a new service for the whole industry which can tap into nascent mobile advertising revenues. One option would be to ask an existing search engine, possibly Google or Yahoo!, to power a service for all the networks.

One option would be to ask an existing search engine, possibly Google or Yahoo!, to power a service for all the networks. It is thought the businesses’s collective clout would secure a bigger portion of advertising revenues in return for giving the engine’s operator and its advertisers a wider subscriber base. A source close to one operator said: "The larger operators would need to be on board for it to be viable because that would make it a de facto standard, then you also have the benefit of economies of scale."

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