We want to do something big like the V Festival aimed at that sort of demographic said Nokia marketing head Simon Lloyd.

Its not going to be a purely music event although music will probably play some part. All that is currently under discussion. It will probably be free he added.

Nokias new multi-million-pound sponsorship deal with ITV star search programme The X Factor started on Saturday night (September 4). Its the most Nokia has spent on a single advertising project in the UK. The show is expected to attract nine million viewers.

Were really excited to be associated with one of the flagship shows of ITVs autumn season and the scope of activity weve developed to support the sponsorship really bears this out said Lloyd.

The audience is in a key demographic for us. The show runs to Christmas so our brand and the key products in our portfolio will be pushed at a very critical time.

Nokia has created an X Factor edition of the new Nokia 3220 which will be available at The Carphone Warehouse from early October. The handset features X Factor wallpaper the theme tune as a polyphonic ring tone and two cut-out covers.

A special promotion with CPW offers Nokia purchasers the chance to win thousands of pounds. New handsets will display a start-up message announcing whether the owner has won a share of a 50000 prize fund with the top prize being 25000.

From October Nokia is also running an X Factor-themed promotion in selected Tesco stores and in Nokia-branded retail outlets.

The Nokia 3220 stars alongside the latest handsets in Nokias portfolio in the shows advertising break bumpers. The storylines show how Nokia products including the Nokia 2650 the megapixel Nokia 7610 camera phone the rugged Nokia 5140 and the N-Gage QD games deck all give you the X Factor.

Commenting on the sponsorship deal Lloyd said:

Nokias integrated X Factor marketing campaign also includes a website where X Factor fans can find exclusive competitions plus details on Nokia mobile phones. Theres an interactive TV site too where you can win an X Factor Nokia 3220.

Members of the Nokia handset owners club Club Nokia can win VIP tickets for the X Factor audience.

Multiple tables have been snapped up by all the main industry players including Sagem Samsung Data Select 20:20 Motorola Sony Ericsson Sharp Nokia Siemens Sendo Philips LG The Carphone Warehouse Dextra Pama Elite European Telecom Unique Distribution Mainline Yes Telecom and Hugh Symons plus the sponsoring networks – Vodafone Orange O2 and Virgin Mobile.

See advertisement page 22

Then there is the small matter of network access. It was Meteor Mobile who won the last Ireland GSM licence all those years ago meaning Orange has no network in the Republic. Could it have meant to put the posters up in Belfast?

So says BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) which claims it has doubled its subscriber base to two million in the past 10 months.

RIM president Mike Lazaridis claimed the surge in sales has been due to the number of new BlackBerry devices that have been launched so far this year.

He added that the BlackBerry is the first integrated wireless data product to reach two million users.

It took five years to establish the market and attract the first million.

The fridge-and-phone deal gives customers a Budweiser mini-fridge thrown in with sale of a 129.99 Motorola V220 on Orange.

Its a standard thing at this time of year. We work differently with each independent retailer. Were putting together a promotion with Argos based around the new Pixar movie The Incredibles said an Orange spokesperson.

A Woolworths spokesperson added: Weve done this type of promotion for the past couple of years. Its about delivering a gift item at Christmas and mobile phones are very important to us at this time of year.

Were doing a lot of offers on mobile phones at the moment which include offering other types of electrical goods such as boom boxes televisions sets and so forth.

Any suggestion that the fridge giveaway is a response to the claim by Orange CEO Sanjiv Ahujas that 3G mobile phones overheat to the extent that you can fry eggs on them is coincidental (Mobile News October 15).

Group Telecom was set up by Ian and Andrew Bailey. It ceased trading last month and its final accounts showed it lost 409942 between August 2002 and November this year.

In a report on the companys trading history a director said:

The growth of the business was also hampered by restrictions and lack of support from Nokia for whom (Group Telecom) had only one manufacturers accreditation. This severely limited the size of the contracts the company was able to tender for and was therefore only able to tender for low-volume low-margin retail sales.

The directors report also acknowledges an increase in competition from Far East repair centres which were able to offer lower cost repairs.

Also blamed was a legal row with a third director Angus Davidson who sued the company for unfair dismissal.

This diverted a substantial amount of the directors time from focusing on the business to defending the action added the report. A substantial cost was also incurred in defending this action.

Among the creditors are Customs and Excise ( 70000) Inland

Revenue ( 32000) Unique Distribution ( 3700) and Intec ( 1316).

SUBtv claims an audience of 1.2 million student viewers. The campaign features 3s Japanese style

critter characters in sequences designed to promote 3s messages of we like music and we like sharing.

The videos will appear on plasma screens installed in student unions across the country.

The campaign will run daily in 30-minute lunchtime and evening sessions for 10 weeks

Students will be able to text the screens so that their message will appear on the local tickertape.

The new MVNO offering is launched to business customers only. BT will be responsible for all marketing branding billing and customer service while network airtime and services will be provided by Vodafone.

BT Mobiles portfolio of services will become available to consumers in January.

Steven Evans CEO of BT Mobile said that the MVNO which uses airtime from Vodafone would target customers through large high-street retailers but would resist cheap packages and large dealer commissions.

We are not going to buy market share at any cost said Evans.

We are going to use the high street retailers. We have proven already that we can add customers.

He added: We will look at the value of customers and at the ARPU and we will offer commissions depending on the sale. Ultimately we will define ourselves by the convergence of fixed and mobile.

The significance of today is the launch of BT Mobile on the Vodafone network as an MVNO. Until now we have been acting as a service provider to O2. From today onwards all new customers signing to us will be on the Vodafone network.

An MVNO has a lot more flexibility to differentiate services. A service provider effectively just re-badges a networks services.

Evans reckons that as an MVNO BT Mobile is in now charge of the services that it puts on the table. New service Business Circle lets businesses manage their telecoms costs through a mobile Virtual Private Network (VPN) which links mobile devices to company switchboards and enables calls to company mobiles across the private network to be charged at reduced prices.

BT Mobile customers can also manage conference calls via a mobile handset with new service Confer-ence on Demand and is about to offer business customers BT Openzone Wireless Broadband for a reduced monthly fee.

Evans added: We will be maintaining our existing service provider base on O2 until they reach the end of their contracts and then look to sign them to the new Vodafone MVNO arrangement. We have a whole raft of customers who are between month one and month 24 of their contract so they are becoming available to re-sign all the time.

BT Mobile put on 90000 new contract customers between June and September 2004 bringing its total customer base to 305000. Of the total 145000 are business customers.

As customer contracts expire over the next two years BT Mobile will attempt to re-sign them.

In the six months to September 30 turnover from mobility services nearly trebled compared with last year to 49 million.

Even so Oranges direct sales team is said to be matching 3 tariffs if customers threaten to churn to the 3G network.

Gary Bridger proprietor of Airwaves Communications told Mobile News:

Orange is matching 3 now on its Orange Value Promise. If a customer wants to leave and requests their PAC code Orange will match 3 tariffs to retain them. Trying to get a customers PAC code from Orange is becoming very difficult.

An Orange spokesman explained the omission of 3 and Virgin Mobile in the ad campaign saying:

Its a Value Promise not a price promise. What you subscribe to on Orange and what you subscribe to on 3 are different. If you compare 3s offering with Orange they are slightly different propositions.

It is almost a year to the day that new regulations came into force making it a specific offence to use a hand-held phone or similar device when driving.

The penalty for failing to comply with the new legislation is currently a 30 fixed penalty but drivers also face the risk of prosecution with a fine of up to 1000 on conviction in court.

At first the legislation was great news for the industry particularly for dealers distributors and accessory companies as sales of car kits Bluetooth headsets and hands-free kits surged.

But the mood was quickly punctured when it became clear that these penalties werent actually being enforced; few people received fines and even fewer were prosecuted.

Now 12 months on the Department of Transport is pushing for harder penalties. It wants offenders to be punished with three points on their licence and the fine doubled to a more off-putting 60.

But a spokeswoman for the Department of Transport admitted to Mobile News that it could be a while before the new penalties become the letter of the law.

To be able to say how long it can take a bill to be passed through is like saying how long is a piece of string she said. Obviously from our point of view the sooner this comes into force the better.

As the bill for achieving this formed part of the Queens speech to Parliament the spokeswoman said the legislation could be all finalised by early 2005 but she added that the industry would have to wait and see.

Seldon Scott managing director of Selfones developed the Selfones HF2 handsfree car kit in response to the 2003 legislation but he admitted that after initially healthy sales things quickly slowed down.

The new penalties will no doubt generate business but it will all depend on how the Government promotes them. If it goes for a huge national advertising campaign we will all see the impact through retail.

He added: Last year the legislation prompted a huge rush of sales before Christmas but that soon died in the new year especially as it soon become apparent that the police werent interested in enforcing it.

Adrian Foot managing director of Phone Accessories Direct thinks that the new tougher legislation will force drivers to act and as such he is looking forward to the prospect of increased revenue.

I think the past year has acted as a cooling off period – people know they shouldnt do it but theyve carried on regardless because it has not been enforced up to now he said.

But once you start talking points and people realise they could actually lose their licence we will see a real change in attitude and people will rush to buy compliant kit.

Foot predicts a real surge in sales when that happens particularly around Bluetooth headsets. That will be great for our business because well be only to happy to supply that demand he said.

But Ian Robinson managing director of Kent-based MoCo Distribution believes the Government will have to ensure it acts to clear up confusion as to which kit is actually legally compliant.

When the legislation first came out things were a mess because there was so much confusion about what kit was legal. This time round the Government needs to make it crystal clear what is and isnt allowed regarding mobile phone use in the car.

Robinson even went so far as to suggest the government should endorse a product.

The prospect of three points on a licence will really shake things up and I expect people will take it seriously and want to be legally compliant.

But the Government needs to get off the fence and endorse a product that is legally compliant. That way people will know for sure what kind of kit they should buy.