Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA all agreed to the plan, which was established with the help of major mobile content owners and aggregators. Among those were VeriSign, Neustar, Limbo and Thumbplay. The MMA's Consumer Best Practices Committee will review the first draft of the planned guidelines in early April, and the group expects a final document to be released to the public by the end of June.

Among other things, the cooperation will lead to standardized disclosures for consumers, according to the MMA. But it could also lead to more mobile marketing campaigns, because having all the major U.S. carriers on the same page should streamline the process of getting marketing content out to users. Overall, the common rules could save the mobile industry as much as US$200 million per year, the group said.

The common rules have five objectives, according to the MMA:

- promote a consistent consumer experience;

- enhance efficiencies for marketing campaigns using short codes, or numbers that users send via text message to request services or content;