Staff Reporter

Networks reported more than double the normal voice traffic and texts on the day of the London bombs outrage.

An O2 spokesman said:

The network performed exceptionally well under the circumstances – we handled more than double the amount we would normally carry. As soon as it became clear there was an emergency we invoked a procedure called half-rate banding to double the capacity for London.

This allows you to carry two calls in the normal bandwidth for one – the downside is that the audio quality is downgraded. But even after invoking that we still saw pockets of congestion.

O2 was the only operator that was asked to prioritise emergency lines.

We took a request from the police to privide priority access to emergency services for most of the afternoon so customers in and around Aldgate wouldnt have been able to make or receive calls he said.

A Vodafone spokesman said: Initial confusion reigned everywhere. We had to invoke emergency network procedures to cope with the extra demand because the network was so busy. Voice traffic was up 250 per cent and texts 100 per cent.

A T-Mobile spokeswoman said: The T-Mobile network remained fully operational. On a normal day T-Mobile carries 60 million calls but on Thursday we had 86 million calls of which 99.6 per cent were successful. In addition 500000 texts were being sent every 15 minutes compared with the normal 200000 T-Mobile carries.

An Orange spokesperson added:

We had twice as many calls as normal. The network itself was busy but it remained fully operational throughout the morning. The peak period was between 10.30am and 11am. Customers may have had to try a few times to get through but we didnt have to invoke any access overload control procedures.

A 3 spokesman said: As with all the other networks 3 saw an increased demand on our network in central London. We continually monitored the network and it coped with demand.

Samsung has already established service relationships with trading partners in order to fine tune future service agreements with dealers.

There will be an opportunity for key retail outlets Samsung Mobile UK director Mark Mitchinson told Mobile News.

That will definitely happen because the dealer community is best placed to offer that service. But at the moment we are just seeing how it works.

At the moment Samsung is rolling out to selected dealerships with which it already has a trading relationship.

We have to make sure that the customer relationship is a good one and to decide on the final look and feel. We wont have two service centres within a stones throw of one another.

Matt Chambers of The Phone Chamber in Edenbridge said:

It would mean that a dealer could hold stock and become trained to a certain level beyond cosmetic repairs.

I worked at a Nokia service centre and it was a great thing. It increased the footfall into the store and means you can offer to upgrade or fix a customers phone. Its very good news.

Nokia is very well-established now and anyone who runs a Nokia service centre knows its a good deal and holds on to it. There is also an honour that goes with being a service centre accredited by one of the leading manufacturers.

Faisal Sheikh of Phone Doctors at London Bridge said: Its good news definitely. It just means you can offer an extra level of support. It means better backing in terms of stock and service. And happier customers means more money too.

The new deal worth around 4 million a year is with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and includes 3G content rights as well as access to players and branding of all playing and training kit.

Vodafone Group chief marketing officer Peter Bamford said:

The inclusion of the 3G cricket rights in this deal expands the parameters of our partnership and ensures that cricket fans across the country will be able to catch the action on the field wherever they are.

A Vodafone spokesperson added:

Its a big sport in the UK so the interest is certainly there. We wouldnt have invested in it if we didnt think there was sufficient take-up. Weve supported the England cricket team already through its highs and lows and it is great that it is having such success now.

ECB chief executive David Collier said:

This four-year agreement demonstrates Vodafones ongoing commitment to cricket and provides the ECB with valuable support in our longer term objective of delivering continuing success at the national level.

The deal also includes sponsorship of the England A Team the England Womens Team and the ECB National Cricket Academy Teams.

Vodafone has been the England cricket team sponsor since the 1997 tour of the West Indies.

The award is designed to encourage excellence within companies who install communications and other equipment such as mobile phones two-way radios vehicle positioning systems and telematics into vehicles.

The Isis installations division supplies and advises on a wide portfolio of equipment for vehicles including conventional car kits navigation products in-car multimedia and tracking equipment.

Co-chairman of the FCS Installers Group Stewart Gent of the Chameleon Group said: We set the mobile installer community a challenge to tell us why their products and services delivered into the UK market are special.

The panel of independent judges chose Isis Telecommunications as the clear winner for its well-defined commitment to customer care in its installation work and its declaration to always be Right First Time.

The new .mobi domain will be reserved for web sites that are designed to be viewed on a mobile phone. It is expected that it will improve the web browsing experience of visitors.

The mTLD Initiative an Ireland-based coalition of leading companies within the industry and ICANN the company responsible for the Internets addressing system signed a contract this week formalising the creation of the .mobi domain for the entire mobile industry.

Members of the mTLD include the GSM Association 3 Nokia Samsung T-Mobile and Vodafone among others.

The organisation also announced the creation of a new joint-venture to auction domain names to the industry. It will also allocate and run services for the .mobi domain for the next 10 years.

The .mobi domain is expected to give the data market a fillip and create new business opportunities for Internet service and content providers in the mobile domain.

The initiative will launch with a 90 day sunrise period allowing corporations with trademark validated names to secure a second-level .mobi domain.

Generic second-level domain names will be available on a first-come first-served basis after the sunrise period.

The main idea behind the development is that it will provide a simpler more predictable way to find content on the move.

The idea is that users will be sure that the content they are viewing works properly because it is made for mobile.

Impact was formed to supply communications tools to businesses across the UK and employment prospects to jobless youngsters in Yorkshire.

Managing director Dave Lowther and director of telecoms Jill Johnson have gone as well as two sales staff.

Lowther said that he left the company by mutual consent after a difference of opinion about the commercial direction the company was taking. He stated that his departure was unrelated to Johnsons exit three weeks later.

Johnson confirmed her departure but refused to comment on it.

Said Lowther: The reason that Jill left is entirely different from the reasons for my own departure. Jill hadnt been involved in the telecoms side of the business for six months. She had been working in community development. There are two different reasons for our departures.

My departure is a joint decision that has come about because of differences about the commercial direction the company was taking and how to acquire finances.

The girl in charge of the fundraising side of the business left a few months ago and it has left a vacuum.

Two members of the sales team left Impact within a week of Lowther to secure long-term futures at different jobs.

Lowther said he had helped Impact obtain a billing platform and airtime agreements and that the money was not available for further expansion. A redundancy settlement is expected within the next fortnight.

Lowther added: I did not leave under a cloud. In this industry if you leave under a cloud you dont come out with anything.

Impact was unavailable for comment.

The new service called PopVid will make music videos available through DX3s distribution deal with Universal Music.

Headline acts include U2 Eminem Scissor Sisters and Keane. The Universal deal means that its content can be distributed via WAP or Java across a range of different platforms such as PCs mobile phones and memory cards.

DX3 will announce deals with high street retailers and MVNOs within the next fortnight.

It is available cross-network on multiple handsets said DX3 managing director Neil Marshall.

It doesnt need a proprietary music player in the handset. It will locate and activate whatever music player is in the device whether that is Real Player or a manufacturers own player. Its not a stream; its a progressive download. So after you have watched it you can keep it and build up a collection.

It means content including music videos is now available to the highest ever number of mobile customers regardless of whether they access the service using a 2.5G or 3G connection and irrespective of the network that provides their service.

Opera Telecom managing director Gary Corbett said: We are hoping to expand this service to make PopVid into a complete interactive mobile music magazine.

A marketing campaign is running on satellite music channels including MTV VH1 and Kiss. A phased roll-out will see more functions added to the PopVid application over time including wallpapers realtones and full audio downloads.

The service which uses T-Mobile offers customers flat rates and a choice of 12 handsets.

It will at first be marketed to Toucans 140000 fixed-line and broadband customers. They will get a single bill for their fixed-line phone line broadband service and mobile phone.

As a post-paid service it will appeal to only a section of the market admitted Toucan MD Joseph Blass. But it still has a wide appeal because it is a very good offer. Its not a niche offer like other MVNOs that have launched recently. There are of course niche elements to it such as the international calling service. But there is nothing niche about 5p flat-rate anytime calling.

Toucan Mobile offers four different 12-month contracts: 50 minutes ( 15 a month) 150 minutes ( 25 a month 300 minutes ( 35 a month) and 500 minutes ( 50 per month).

Calls cost 5p per minute anytime between Toucan fixed-line and mobile customers. Calls to other landlines cost 10p a minute and calls to other mobile networks cost 25p a minute. International calls are included as bundled minutes.

Its a one-stop-shop said Blass. Its about simplicity transparency and choice. A flat rate of 5p a minute effectively offers our customers off-peak rates all day long. The possibility of combining all communication costs on a single statement make it even more compelling.

Toucan plans to roll out its brand into the Netherlands in the next few months with the roll-out of fixed-line services.

This follows a tie-up between ATM operator LINK and software company Morse which has produced a Java application called mobileATM.

The application took more than two years to develop and will be available to subscribers on all networks by the end of the year giving them instant access to all their banking requirements.

To access the service consumers will download the free application by sending a text message to a short code or by visiting a Carphone Warehouse store where it can be uploaded to their Java handset.

MobileATM claims to be more secure than online banking. Advanced encryption technology will generate a one-off authentication code. This is said to eliminate password theft from phishing (whereby a fake web site asks for security details) or trojan attacks (where a virus is lodged in a PC to harvest data) as codes are changed every time the handset is used.

We have assessed mobileATMs current service and we are impressed with its security specification said Professor Fred Piper director of the information security group at the Royal Holloway University of London.

We think mobileATMs dual-factor authentication system has excellent potential for promoting secure mobile Internet banking.