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Guardian Unlimited will charge users for content for the first time

when it launches a paid-for SMS offering this week.

Five SMS services - covering news, media, politics, football goals and

football news - will be available to Vodafone, BT contract and Orange

consumers. The company is in talks with the remaining networks,

including One 2 One.

Subscription to the services is free. Users pay for the messages through

reverse billing, at a maximum of 25p a message.

Chris Moisan, marketing manager at Guardian Unlimited, said: "If less

than one per cent of Guardian Unlimited's five million users and The

Guardian's 1.1 million readers take up the service, it will be cash

positive. We held off launching the service until we could get Orange on

board and have been watching the market closely.

"A lot of SMS services are just regurgitated web site copy, but our

messages will be bespoke offerings created originally from our team of

journalists."

Guardian Unlimited is planning further niche paid-for SMS services, and

Moisan said the company is also looking at advertising-funded services

that would be free to the user.

The five SMS services will be promoted via the Guardian Unlimited

network with buttons and banners, through text ads on its email services

and in the newspaper from February.