Mobile phones may yet fulfil the potential foreseen during the dot-com boom, following reports that Yahoo and Google are to roll out services through wireless networks.

To date mobile internet - or "3G" - services have proved a disappointment for users, who have had to contend with patchy network coverage and lengthy download times.

Telecoms companies paid £22.5 billion in 3G license fees in the UK alone, hoping to cash in on the new market. But half a decade later a study by Ofcom, the telecoms watchdog, found that 85 per cent of the British population did not know what "3G" meant.

That could change with the news that two of the internet's largest players are renewing their attack on the mobile market.

Yahoo is planning to form is partnership with SBC Communications of the United States, to launch a mobile telephone, the Wall Street Journal said. Such a model could then be extended to the UK. The service will link mobile phone services to Yahoo users’ accounts and personalised features such as address books.

SBC executives said the SBC-Yahoo phone, which will be manufactured by Nokia, is expected to be ready early in the new year.

Google has already launched internet services for mobile devices in the UK. From today, users of some mobile phones will be able to use the internet advertising giant's satellite map service.

Last year, Google began allowing US consumers to get search results by sending text messages from mobile phones. In June it began letting users get search results from an index of web sites optimised for mobile phones.

Yahoo and Google are not alone in wanting to put themselves in their customers' hands. Last week Microsoft said that its new web-based services, which include online versions of its most popular software packages, would be available from mobiles supporting windows software.

Television and music companies are also keen to reach customers who will watch TV or listen to music on the move through their phones.

Sony has already teamed up with Orange to offer a Walkman phone in a bid to revive the iconic 1980s music player. Meanwhile, Apple's iTunes software, the market leader in online music, is now found in some Motorolla phones.

In Britain, Vodafone and BSkyB, which is 37.2 per cent owned by News Corporation, the parent company of Times Online, recently announced that they would work together to offer television content through telephone handsets.

Mobile operators O2 and Orange have already launched trial mobile TV services in the UK and France, but the Vodafone-Sky package is the most advanced offering yet in an area viewed by television and mobile executives as ripe for expansion.

Hollywood studios and television producers have also tuned into the idea and have begun to pilot "mobisodes" specially developed for small handset screens.

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