The service is now available at all 462 Bank of Ireland ATM machines nation-wide from the first week in May. Ready to Go customers with Bank of Ireland accounts will be able to use their PASS cards to gain access to special Ready to Go screens on the ATM to add call credit to their mobile phones which will then be topped up within 30 minutes.

Jeroen Visser director of Ready to Go at Eircell said:

One in 10 Irish people now own a Ready to Go phone. Flexibility is the key to remaining mobile and our customers have told us that they want a variety of payment methods to suit their busy lifestyles.

We are delighted to be able to bring cutting edge technology in a very simple form on Bank of Ireland PASS machines.

Pat OShea Bank of Ireland principal business consultant payment and electronic banking services added:

ATMs and mobile phones are essentials of the modern age and this new service marries the latest technology in ATMs and mobile telecommunications.

Meteor Communications which had originally won the right to commence operations using both GSM 900 and 1800 bands last year has yet to be advised of the result of the Orange High Court appeal.

The action challenged the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulations (ODTR) decision to award the dual-band licence to Meteor. Orange The result of the Orange court action is expected at the end of May.

Hoyle who left Dawes after it was sold to Cellnet will be in charge of account management of the Cable and Wireless service provider bought two weeks ago by Vodafone for 22 million.

For the last 10 years Hoyle has held account management and sales positions with Martin Dawes including national sales manger and sales director.

Seven arrests were made in the UK as police swooped on companies and individuals suspected of exploiting EC tax rules to export and import phones at zero VAT rates through bogus companies and then re-claiming the VAT.

The raids were co-ordinated under a Customs and Excise investigation called Operation Ginger.

Many of the UKs top distributors have been interviewed by VAT officers who were investigating the scam and tracing shipments.

Magistrates ordered Calem Atour (24) to attend a work group for up to 60 days during the term.

Atour was seen throwing a brick through the Range Rover and stealing the three phones.

In another court case a mobile phone thief who targeted taxi drivers is to get a custodial sentence.

Roy Marquis (27) will be sentenced by Southwark Crown Court.

The DB500 is aimed at the style conscious sector of the market. Both phones were developed at NECs R&D centre at Reading and are being made at Telford (see White LInes).

A third of large companies expect mobile phones will be the main phone of their employees over the next few years.

So says a report from International Data Corporation which predicts networks will carry a significant chunk of business voice traffic in the next five years.

A former employee Steven Isles is now to be appointed managing director of Scapegold which connected to Sony Cellular Services and Orange who are each owed respectively 115000 and 76000.

Kobeissi was trying to organise a Corporate Voluntary Arrangement which would allow the company to keep trading while it worked to repay creditors 40p in the pound.

The idea was that all revenue would be paid into an accountants client account which would then disburse commission payments to connecting dealers.

However since details of the Corporate Voluntary Arrangement proposals were sent to creditors last month a number of changes have now been decreed.

Kobeissi has transferred his shares back to the company and has resigned as a director of Scapegold.

Another Scapegold director Firas Bilbeisi will transfer his shares to Isles.

Steven Isles is committed to the companys future and has agreed to rebuild the management team in order to achieve the profit necessary to ensure the payment of creditors via the CVA said accountants Hills Jarrett which is handling the matter (01279 725050).

In his initial statement to creditors Kobeissi admitted that Scapegold was in a financial mess.

He also admitted there had been inadequate accounting and misleading management information.

Clark White Publications publishers of Mobile News successfully sued Scapegold for an unpaid advertising bill after Kobeissis promises of payment and claims that he had paid the overdue account turned out to be false and cheques he had issued bounced.

Other dealers told similar stories of unfulfilled promises and bounced cheques from Kobeissi.At least 25 dealers are owed commission payments by Scapegold.

Kobeissi has put himself down as a creditor following an unsecured loan of 50000 to Scapegold. This claim has yet to be verified by Hills Jarrett. Another Scapegold shareholder Ziad Bilbeisi also loaned Scapegold 180000 and now wants it back.

EFR connections will start with people signing to One-2-45 and the All In One Pack.

EFR takes advantage of the latest chip speeds and power to handle more complicated voice processing techniques.

One 2 One started deploying EFR earlier this year. It now offers nine EFR-compatible handsets in its Nokia and Ericsson range.

EFR is the most significant advance since the launch of the digital phone and we are taking the leadership in its deployment so that One 2 One customers can be the first to benefit. EFR-compatible handsets are only now becoming widely available said One 2 One managing director Tim Samples.

With the penetration of EFR handsets in our customer base set to increase steadily the time is now right to start making EFR more widely available he added.

Orange introduced EFR about the same time. Vodafone is rolling it out on its network. Cellnet recently brought out a speech compression feature called Clearcall which suppresses background noise and boosts volume. This service works on any handset.

One 2 One says non-EFR phones will also get improved call quality because of another upgrade programme being undertaken in parallel.

The company is aiming to sign up at least 50 independent retailers in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland market is about nine months behind the mainland and massive growth is anticipated says MoCo head of sales Bill Wilson. He says the Sony deal should provide a 10 per cent increase in connections.

The company is to donate 10 to the RSPCA for every new connection as well as one per cent of the customers monthly bill.

The promotion will be featured in the RSPCA members magazine this month and December.

Holders of the RSPCA credit card will be sent an insert detailing the agreement and giving them the opportunity to pay their airtime bills with their credit card.