Staff Reporter

O2 has 51000 active pagers on its network although most of these are contained within automatic devices used for remote control switching operations for water and power services. Now the network has given users six months notice to switch to paging service PageOne or swap to O2 BlackBerry or BusinessText services.

(see Comment P14)

But Orange claimed that the technology was not available to it when the 3G data card went into production.

Dilithium sales and marketing VP Lee Ellison commented:

3G data cards are an excellent service to business executives but Orange is missing a trick by not offering video-calling. Our VT Phone technology would enable these customers to trial video services on their laptop and would add no more than two per cent of the cost of the data card. This could boost revenues and increase the number of video-enabled terminals.

Orange responded by saying:

It is not a critical issue. We are looking at video options but we cant confirm whether VT Phone is one of the technologies. There will be a market for video services on 3G. We already looking to adapt a version of the 3G data card to address this market.

Lord joins the network from a similar position at ITV. He has also been a legal adviser to Cable & Wireless.

3 has a fantastic opportunity to challenge the established practices in the UK mobile market said Lord.

Chief commercial officer Nick Read will run the Consumer Business unit and business segment director Ken McGeorge will lead the Enterprise unit until he takes early retirement at the end of the year.

Vodafone Ireland marketing director Tim Yates comes back to the UK as chief marketing officer in September. Yates will handle consumer segment marketing and keep a strategic eye on the Enterprise units marketing team.

Vodafones current marketing director Lance Batchelor will move to a new director-level position though it has yet to be announced.

Called OYBike the service was founded by former mobile solutions provider Bernie Hanning. Cyclists can pick up a bike from any of the rental stations by phoning an OYBike call centre for a release code which is tapped into a keypad to unlock the bike. OYBike sends the customer an SMS message to confirm the release code and to provide a keypad code to lock the bike again on its return. Customers open an OYBike account for 10 and are charged for the total time that the bike is away from a rental station. OYBike charges 30p for 15 minutes 80p for half an hour 2 for an hour and 8 between one and eight hours.

Ursula Hauptmann-Smith claimed she had been fired after threatening to blow the whistle on the accounting practices of the company run by former DX Communications owner Richard Emmanuel.

But the employment tribunal has dismissed her initial attempts to pursue a case against the firm. Hauptmann-Smith has said she will pursue the action later in the year but TRS doesnt believe this is likely.

Hauptmann-Smith claimed that during her 10 months at the company some revenue had been allowed to accrue to Orange and that TRS had wrongly billed the company UTL for some Austrian units instead of billing NEC.

She alleged she had discovered boxes of phones sent for repair by Orange had been sent back to the company unrepaired – and that Orange had still been billed for repair work.

Another claim she made was that TRS head Sergio Tansini had lost his temper with her and later that week dismissed her. But the tribunal failed to rule in the former financial controllers favour.

Tansini told the tribunal I resent the allegation of fraud very strongly.

A spokesman for Total Repair Solutions said:

We expected this outcome. TRS staff have worked hard over the years to build an enviable record of honesty and efficiency in a very competitive market.

Mobile phone users looked at a daily average of 47 million WAP pages. This was more than double the daily average of 22.5 million WAP pages viewed during the same period last year.

The MDA forecasts that WAP page impressions will reach a total of 13 billion for 2004.

Volunteer visitors must complete endurance challenges using the dust splash and shock-proof Siemens M65.

The M65 Climate Chamber is part of a pan-European tour which will visit 20 European cities over the next six months.

At the end of the tour in November the fastest challengers from across Europe will win the opportunity to join the Siemens Mobile Experience Tour in Peru where they will be able to explore the stunning scenery and extraordinary diversity of climates by mountain bike raft and jeep.

The M65 is available now on O2 and free on contract.

I have another job but I cant say where yet. I have very much enjoyed my time at LG but an opportunity has arisen that I cannot pass up.

Last year was the initial start to the business so we dont want to overstretch ourselves.

3G is the future but we cant ignore the fact that 2.5G still has huge appeal.

3G is still inits infancy- there is still a long way to go in terms of uptake and market appeal.

There is interest in 3G but there are still a lot of people who are not ready for it yet.

The C1200 has a burgundy finish features GPRS JAVA and WAP 2.0. It has 200-hour battery stand-by and five hours of talk time.

The C1100 clamshell phone is a featherweight 80.5g. It has MMS WAP 2.0 and JAVA.

From August 1 users just have to respond to a message with the word Stop to terminate unwanted message services.

Mobile Data Association Chairman Mike Short said: This scheme could stimulate demand for premium services as there is a clearly defined method to stop the services/payments when the customer wants.