I 'signed up' for and had a try of Microsoft's MSN Messenger SMS service on Saturday and whilst the concept is pretty radical and theoretically sound, I'm sorry to say that the service, in practice leaves much to be desired. The instructions for setting up the service are reasonably straight forward and you can be ready to go in minutes. However, once you've done that, you quickly realise that it is less than perfect.

The problem becomes apparent when you actually try to use it. You instruct the service with a series of SMS commands. For example, to log in from your mobile and retrieve a contact list, you send "CL" to the number you've been given. If it bothers to reply, you will be given the first eight contacts in your list and to send a message to them, you preceed your message with their number.

All well and good, you might think, but I've had limited success getting replies from the server and contacts I have tested it with say they never get messages from me. I'm finding it very "hit and miss". Then there's the FAQs and technical support pages, they're basically just the instructions re-written - doesn't help an awful lot! LOL.

Don't get me wrong, I'm "hats off" to Microsoft and Verizon Wireless for putting the technology together, but I feel it's far from ready.

I'd be interested to hear experiences from others who have tried this service.