Previously Iridium and Motorola teamed up to provide satellite phones and service to Central American governments and relief agencies in the wake of Hurricane Mitch as well as to humanitarian agencies assisting refugees in the recent Balkans conflict.

The parent company now believes that it is probably the largest independent repairer of mobile telecommunications equipment in the UK.

Says EPS Chief Executive Peter Ashton We have the capability to manage all aspects of our customers after-sales and warranty management issues. We have developed services such as technical enquiry and fault diagnostics help desk electronic testing and repair cosmetic refurbishment product exchange and distribution management. This gives us an extensive end to end service capability enabling EPS to be a true third party manager of the complete logistics chain.

When children aged 10 years to 15 years were asked what they would most like as a Christmas present nearly 50 per cent of them chose a mobile phone followed by 32 preferring a colour TV and 19 per cent who wanted a games console.

The research indicated that over 60 per cent of the parents who would give their child a mobile for Christmas said they thought phones were important for safety reasons.

Woolworths research was carried out from a sample of 200 children nationwide and 1000 parents nationwide.

In recent weeks we have reduced the prices of all our phones and as a result sales are booming said Woolworths mobile phone buyer Jim Ramsay.

Our Bootle store is now selling 50 to 60 phones a week which is phenomenal growth when you consider Woolworths only entered the market recently.

We are also seeing a large increase in the sale of airtime vouchers and we are expecting these to become very popular as gifts for Christmas and birthdays Ramsay added.

Woolworths is currently selling: One 2 Ones Up 2 You ( 59.99) and More 2 Say ( 79.99) Vodafones Pay as You Talk ( 49.99 with Motorola handset 69.99 with Panasonic handset 89.99 with Nokia handset) and BTCellnets Pay and Go ( 69.99 with Siemens C21).

Users can put their calls on hold and listen to up to 20 minutes of audio recorded onto a 16Mb memory chip.

The handset can record on either standby or talk time and features playback mode.

The SPH-M2100 model phone which is targeted at buyers in their 20s and 30s went on sale on the Korean market last week.

A separate remote control unit can be used to operate music and call functions a file decryption programme has been built in to prevent illegal copying of music downloaded into the phone.

Meanwhile NEC says it has developed the worlds first coder/decoder which enables the transmission and reception of audio and video over the internet for next generation phones.

The technology is said to make mobile video-phones a reality.

NEC is working on making the device smaller and boosting its performance before incorporating it into a final product.

A new class of amateur radio licence is to be launched next month as part of the re-structuring of the way amateur radio bands are allocated says the Radiocommunications Agency.

The company has also announced plans to expand its nation-wide personnel complement of 500 by around 10 per cent to keep pace with growth.

These are Talk 400 (400 minutes for 58.75 a month) Talk 1300 (1300 minutes for 176.25 a month) Talk 3700 (3700 minutes for 470.00 a month) and Talk 7500 (7500 minutes for 940.00 per month).

Up to 100 handsets can be connected to one talk plan. Larger corporate customers will also be able to design their own tariffs.

Orange is also now offering corporate customers the L7089 tri-band Motorola which can operate on GSM1900 networks in North America as well as GSM1800 and GSM900 networks in Europe.

In September Orange will launch a high-speed mobile internet access providing data rates from 28.8kb/s up to 64 kb/s – up to six times the current speed of the Orange wirefree network and with speeds comparable to many current commercial modems.

Orange is also increasing its support for business customers with the expansion of a dedicated business sales team to manage corporate accounts and a specialist business bureau within Orange customer services to handle business-only enquiries. For personal customers Orange will now offer Talk 30 (30 minutes of talk time for 17.50 a month) and Talk 120 (120 minutes for 25.00 a month).

Access to the range of Orange internet services will be charged at normal Orange data rates. There will be no monthly subscription and internet access can also be used as part of a customers inclusive minutes. Data transmission up to six times faster than current data speeds from 28.8kbs up to 64 kbs will be available via a high-speed circuit switched data (HSCSD) service.

This is an enhancement to Oranges existing circuit-switched network technology. It follows an investment of over 10 million. Orange says the rollout of the new service will make it the first UK mobile operator to offer high speed data rates this side of the millennium.

Current speeds for dial up connection from a mobile to the internet or corporate intranet is a relatively slow 9.6 kbs. HSCSD is the first stage in the evolution of second generation GSM to third generation UMTS technology.

Oranges first videophone will be a palm-held device which will provide full video and audio communication capabilities e-mail access internet browsing organiser applications and handwriting recognition via a 10cm diagonal full-colour screen.

The product is a result of a collaboration with scientists at the University of Strathclyde who have developed a new way of compressing data.

This protocol says Orange will enable the network to offer unrivalled video compression and transmit high-quality full-colour moving images over Orange at speeds six times faster than current data speeds and matching those offered by the majority of fixed-line modems.

The videophone will weigh approximately 350g. Pricing for the device and associated video-based services will be announced later this year. First models are scheduled for completion by the end of this year with full scale production expected in 2000.

The screen will be touch sensitive featuring fully interactive icon desktop for ease of use. It will also offer the ability for touch screen dialling via numeric keys and in-built directory. Users will be able to initiate and receive both video and standard audio calls at rates of up to 12 frames-per-second. It will allow handsfree operation in video and audio mode with the loudspeaker doubling as an earpiece and the microphone as a mouthpiece.

For privacy the videophone will also support detachable earpiece headsets. The multimedia features are promised to be extensive. Users will be able to store video stills and clips and even send them as e-mail attachments says Orange.

The phone will run on the Windows CE 3.0 operating system and be dual-band.

VodafoneAirtouchs USA subsidiary Airtouch Cellular is buying the whole issued share capital of CommNet for $764 million in cash plus $600 million in debt at a rate of $31 a share.

The deal which is expected to take five months to complete will add vast new regions to AirTouchs coverage in the Western USA.

CommNet offers coverage in Colorado Montana North Dakota South Dakota Utah and Wyoming giving access to 3.6 million potential customers. CommNet currently has 360000 subscribers.

CommNet is owned by a private equity fund of the investment bank the Blackstone Group.

CommNet shareholders will get $31 a share in cash plus eight per cent interest until the deal closes.

CommNets markets are well managed and fit ours like a hand in glove said VodafoneAirTouch chief executive Chris Gent.

This deal will allow customers to enjoy the benefits of AirTouch over a much broader area. It will cut our roaming costs and offer significant marketing synergies.