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.

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 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.

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.

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.

In addition a new tariff Vodafone Passport comes into effect from today backed by a major advertising campaign launching on Monday.

Passport enables Vodafone customers on all contract and pay-as-you-go consumer tariffs as well as Businesstime tariffs to make calls from abroad for a one-off connection fee of 75p and then use the same inclusive minutes and prices they have when in the UK.

For example a customer on Anytime 200 in Spain could call the UK and use all 200 minutes on one call for a one-off connection fee of 75p. This compares to a metered call of five minutes costing 3.75.

Customers can also receive a call of up to one hour for 75p. Previously this would have cost 75p a minute. To activate Passport customers call 5555.

The advertisements will be similar to the current Stop the Clock campaign and will emphasise that some calls need to be more than a short conversation.

Advertisements will show people abroad needing to call home for longer than three minutes. They will be shown in breaks in popular programmes such as Big Brother The Simpsons and Murder Investigation Team on Sky.

Holiday operator First Choice will distribute promotional leaflets on the meal trays of customers on First Choice flights.

A Vodafone spokesperson said:

Customer feedback told us that people wanted to be able to talk more often for longer when abroad with greater clarity on what that call would cost. Vodafone Passport has been created to give our customers excellent value when travelling overseas.

To further simplify using mobiles overseas customers will automatically receive a text with details about how to make cheap international calls as soon as they arrive at their destination.

Vodafone Passport is available in Albania Australia Germany Greece Hungary the Republic of Ireland Italy Japan Malta The Netherlands New Zealand Portugal Spain and Sweden.

It is also available in France and Monaco on the SFR network in Switzerland on Swisscom and in Belgium on Proximus.

Twelve dealers and their partners will get to visit Grand Duke Vladimirs Palace go tank driving and play a spy game where the 10 winners will get to fly in a fighter jet plane Top Gun-style.

The incentive will run throughout July August and September.

In an emotive letter to its members entitled The great O2 robbery the CWU will today (July 15) request members support to ballot for industrial action against O2. The CWU letter which was sent to around 5000 O2 employees this morning reads:

When it comes to the flagrant pursuit of corporate greed and double standards the O2 board sure take some beating.

Not many companies would feel comfortable announcing record profits and a boardroom bonanza of bonuses and pay bungs at the same time as launching an unprecedented attack on the remuneration of their workforce. The appetite of the O2 board for hypocrisy and self-enrichment is impressive. But why should they skimp on the fine things in life when they can claw back more than the cost of their feeding frenzy from those unimportant people who keep the company going?

CWU deputy general secretary Jeannie Drake said:

O2s current divisive and derisory offer is a real kick in the teeth. Half the workforce is being told that they will not receive a consolidated salary increase for around seven years – and the other half that their automatic rights to progress to the maximum level in any salary band through yearly incremental rises are to be taken away and replaced with an unacceptable formula.

O2 says staff salaries would increase 6.2 per cent for 2005/6 which is above the inflation rate of three per cent. O2 reckons that seven years without a pay rise is improbable and that staff pay could be in line with the industry as soon as next year. Performance-related payments would boost an annual salary.

An O2 spokesman said: We are committed to performance-based pay with our best performers receiving the best pay and rewards and market-based pay where pay bands for each role are benchmarked to the wider market.

WorldRoam based in Colchester in Essex was set up in 1992 and specialises in short-term rental of mobile phone and data products to customers based within the UK and the US.

It partners with major car rental companies Hertz National Europcar and Alamo as well as United Airlines and American Express.

Vodafone declined to give any further details of the deal.

The year 2009 should be a bonanza for the mobile industry writes Sherelle Folkes.

City analyst Gartner predicts thats when a whopping one billion phones will be sold each year.

The worlds appetite for mobile phones has exceeded even the most optimistic expectations said Ben Wood research vice-president for mobile terminals at Gartner. Mobile phones could go on to be the most common consumer electronics devices on the planet.

Gartner estimates that by the end of this year mobile phone sales will have risen to 779 million units a year a 16 per cent increase on 2004. Further predictions are that more than 100 million 3G phones will be sold in 2006 with sales of smartphones expected to exceed the 200 million mark in 2008.

The sales volume cannot be attributed to one region in particular. Its a truly global phenomenon said Carolina Milanesi principal analyst at Gartner for mobile terminals.

In mature markets like Europe and North America subscribers are still buying replacement phones. In emerging markets like Brazil and India new customers are signing up for mobile services at an even faster rate.

The Asia/Pacific region accounts for most sales with one in every four mobile phones purchased there this year. In 2009 this will increase to one in three. North Americans are still buying the latest models but the bigger story is in Latin America where sales doubled in 2004.

Deeper analysis of the forecast shows that smartphones are the fastest-growing category of device. Smartphone sales broke all records in the first quarter of 2005 and we expect them to double year on year to 2006 said Roberta Cozza principal analyst at Gartner.

But Wood warns that despite spectacular growth on all fronts not everything is rosy. Sales numbers are impressive but the big names in this industry will have to deliver value as well as volume he cautioned.