Dublin-based Mobileaware bucked the trend last week when it announced the acquisition of New Jersey's Broad Beam for an undisclosed sum.

The company's expansion in the US is also being interpreted as a positive sign for Ireland's rapidly-growing wireless technology industry. Another company in the sector, text messaging and mobile content specialist Zamano, is gearing up for a flotation on London's Alternative Investment Market. Several others, including software companies Cibenix and Prime Carrier, have signed significant deals with major operators such as Vodafone and Hutchison.

Enterprise Ireland has provided grants and equity funding of 40m to 60 companies in the sector. Bill O'Brien, manager of Enterprise Ireland's telecommunications and consultancy services division, said the indigenous mobile industry sprouted in a very short time.

"A lot of them have started since 1999. They're very young companies, " he said.

Much as the dotcom boom inspired start-ups in the 1990s, mobile technology trends have started a new bandwagon rolling, according to O'Brien.

Network operators are under pressure to deliver revenue growth as their businesses mature. The larger mobile companies are finding that mobile phones have reached saturation point in most developed countries and revenue from voice and text services is plateauing. Hence the hype around 3G networks and multimedia services such as video, music and mobile internet.

While the operators roll out the new services, there are big opportunities for enterprising companies to provide the technology that will help those services work. Several Irish companies, including ChangingWorlds, Zamano and Cibenix, are involved in content management, providing software that makes it easier for customers to access content and, hopefully, helps boost usage and turnover.

Cibenix chief executive Gary McCollum is promising to do just that. The five-year-old company's content management software is being used in trials by six operators, including Hutchison and Vodafone, and Cibenix is raising 7m in funding for an all-out assault on the market. McCollum said it has been approached by several venture capitalists and large software companies eager to invest.

"The bigger guys are looking at what we're doing and seeing that there's an opportunity and a real future, " he said.

McCollum said with so many mobile phone owners on the planet there is a huge opportunity for the networks to make money from delivering content to them. O'Brien said hopes are high that Irish firms will get a slice of the action.

"There's a huge amount of business out there. We are a niche supplier to a huge market, " he said.

According to Enterprise Ireland statistics, exports from indigenous telecoms companies were valued at just 100m last year. O'Brien said the market for "telecoms services" was worth $961bn.

Much of that is accounted for by mobile giants such as Vodafone, Deutsche Telecom and Telefonica. O'Brien said it can be extremely difficult for small Irish companies to convince such large customers of the merits of their technology.

"It's very difficult to get into the operators these are tiny companies trying to get in, " he said. From that point of view, he said, it was encouraging to see a company such as MobileAware in a position to grow through acquisition.

O'Brien said too often "a promising company gets started, starts building up a business and then gets sold and the technology goes out of the country".

"More Irish companies need to go the acquisition route to scale, " said John Tracey, chief executive of Trinity Venture Capital. Like O'Brien, Tracey said size does matter when it comes to winning business from large telecoms operators.

Trinity has backed several companies in the sector including ChangingWorlds, which specialises in managing content for mobile networks, and Aepona, a Belfast company founded by former Aldiscon investor Gilbert Little.

"It's a sector we're very interested in and we would have a fair weighting in our portfolio towards the mobile and wireless telecoms area, " said Tracey.

The fact that mobile technology is changing rapidly makes it an attractive target.

Mobile and fixed networks operators are looking at ways of using such technologies as voice over internet (VoIP) and converging fixed line and mobile telecommunications.

"From a VC point of view it is where you have market change and disruption that the opportunities arise, " Tracey said.

As to which Irish companies would benefit, he said most likely it would be those with experience as well as technological expertise.

"We think this is a very attractive, very high-growth market but it's probably more suited to a more established company, " he said. "I would be cautious about start-ups. I think it's a high-growth area but I'm not sure it's an area that start-ups should be targeting."

Mobile's top operators Accuris: Specialises in "xed-mobile convergence.

Its technology enables phone users to swap seamlessly between mobile networks and traditional "xed networks. Backed by Atlantic Bridge venture capital, the VC "rm founded by former Parthus chief executive Brian Long and "nancier Dermot Desmond.

ChangingWorlds: Supplies software to help "personalise" mobile content on mobile internet portals, ensuring the services customers use most often are easily accessible. Technology is used by networks such as O2 and Vodafone.

Zamano: Works with networks to deliver content such as premium-rate text messages, multimedia messages and other data services to customers.

Planning to "oat on London's Alternative Investment Market next year to raise money for expansion.

Cibenix: Makes software that "pushes" content to subscribers on their phones. It identi"es mobile subscriber usage patterns, selects content, such as news feeds, music or video, which may be of interest and offers it to them. In the midst of a 7m fundraising.

Mobile Tornado: Core product is based on "pushto-talk" technology, enabling mobile phones to be used like walkie-talkies. It has licensed its technology to several operators and has partnerships with equipment manufacturers such as Alcatel and Sony Ericsson. Raised 1.3m in a "otation on AIM earlier this year.