Among other charges Nitin Bami (27) of Laurel Gardens Hounslow is charged with stealing a mobile phone five phone batteries and five cases all belonging to British Transport Police on or before 23 May at a police station in Whitfield Street Euston.

He is also charged with stealing a quantity of mobile phones valued at 600 from British Transport police between March 14 and May 23 and two mobile phones worth 200.

In a report entitled The Business Opportunity for Bluetooth in the NHS TDK said that pilot studies have shown that consultants using PDAs save more than an hour a day in paperwork.

Trials were carried out for six months at Bradford General Hospital and Royal Brompton hospital in London.

At present PDAs are used in a few hospitals in the US but none in the UK.

By using Bluetooth solutions or WLANs doctors and nurses can be given access to information wherever they are in the hospital said David Curl TDK head of publicity.

Such equipment would make it easier to transfer important data such as observation notes throughout hospitals and save valuable time.

The report also says that in the future Bluetooth wireless technology could reduce hospital waiting lists by providing consultants with remote access to the condition of both in-patients and out-patients.

However the news was quickly overshadowed by O2 which claims to have added 255000 customers in the same period – swelling its customer base to 12.3 million users.

There was more good news for O2 in the revelation that half its new connections were on contract. The UK couldnt beat O2s German subsidiary however where 73 per cent of its 225000 new customers were on contract.

O2s figures also revealed an increase in subscriber revenues. Based on the figures from the past three months O2 claims its customers spend an average of 254 per year equating to 21 per month.

Post-pay customer revenue for O2 rose marginally by a solitary pound per year to 504 or 42 per month.

Pre-pay customer revenue increased to 128 per year from 121 – an average of 10.67 per month.

During April May and June 2003 Virgin Mobile claimed to have added 231554 net new customers. This is an increase of 35 per cent over Q2 last year and has lifted Virgins customer numbers by 61 per cent in the past 12 months giving a total of 2868666 subscribers as at 30 June.

The latest statistics show a near 200 per cent increase since June 2001 when Virgin signed up its millionth user.

This is the second hot quarter posted by Virgin Mobile. During the first three months of this year the virtual network added 253200 net customers more than the other five networks put together – well ahead of O2 (98000) Vodafone (76000) and Orange (1000) and light years ahead of courtroom rival T-Mobile which lost and disconnected 487000 subscribers.

Virgin Mobile said it expected a similarly strong ranking for Q2 2003 in a market which is experiencing very little growth.

The network says its financial performance during this quarter also exceeded expectations with half-yearly pre-tax earnings of 42 million compared with 16 million last year.

Turnover in the second quarter was more than 100 million.

VIRGIN MOBILE: GROWTH AT A GLANCE

231554 net connections in Q2 2003

2868666 total customer base as at 30 June

35 per cent quarterly year-on-year growth (Q2 2002 v Q2 2003)

1087584 annual user growth (up 61 per cent since Q2 2002)

42 million half-year pre-tax earnings

37 million half-year operating profit

102.2 million Q2 turnover

Industry sources say Xtratel intends to sue Unique for non-payment of a batch of Tel.Me handsets purchased earlier this year. However Unique is said to be unhappy that Xtratel closed down its UK operations leaving Unique with unsupported handsets.

Unique offered the disputed handsets back to Xtratel but the importer refused to accept them.

Uniques managing director Angus Dawe said he was unaware of any legal action and expected to resolve the situation. He commented:

We have some issues with Xtratel as a consequence of them leaving the market that require resolving. I am sure we will come to an amicable solution.

Neither Tel.Me nor Xtratel was available for comment.

Vodafone Orange T-Mobile The Carphone Warehouse and 3 have all launched flagship stores in Oxford Street. The new Oxford Street emporium means O2 now has 205 stores in the UK.

The new O2 store covers 719 sq metres on two levels. Customers will see demonstrations of O2 services such as media messaging O2 Active ringtones games and wallpaper downloads.

Sections will be dedicated to Arsenal O2s main sponsorship partner. The business area will have a conference room and an area offering Internet access.

A large interactive screen in the front window of the store will display special offers and images of passers-by to lure them inside.

The new tariff will be promoted by the biggest advertising campaign Virgin Mobile has undertaken.

A 5 million ad campaign started last week on cinema TV and radio and in the press.

The main TV commercial is set in an old eastern European hospital where bored patients use their thumbs to make a nuisance of themselves by pressing light switches on and off and playing pranks on other patients. The ad closes with the line The Devil makes work for idle thumbs. Keep yours busy. Text another Virgin mobile for only 3p.

Texting is phenomenally popular with the young with whom Virgin is already a well-loved brand said Virgin founder Richard Branson.

We want to reward those customers for the support that has made Virgin Mobile the number one network for texters in the UK.

Call.Saver claims to offer 20 per cent cheaper calls from fixed lines to mobiles and 250 inclusive off-peak minutes. The service is being sold only in The Link for 12 months. One.Tel has no plans to offer similar packages through any other retailer.

Link MD Nick Wood commented: We have been selling fixed-line phones longer than The Carphone Warehouse. It is an incremental profit opportunity for The Link because 70 per cent of our customers are on BT.

He added: This is a better value offering than Talk Talk.

The claim was made at the EDGE Operators Forum (EOF) in New Orleans last week. The EOF said that many European operators are evaluating EDGE or enhanced data rates for GSM as a complementary or alternative technology to 3G because of its low cost of deployment and technical efficiency.

The EOF claimed that those deploying EDGE can increase data speeds to three times those achievable over GPRS for around to $1-$2 per subscriber without the need for a 3G licence.

Motorola Nokia and Sony Ericsson all announced EDGE products at the 3GSM World Congress.

The body will provide their customers with a multi-network commonly branded solution for making payments using their handsets.

Orange T-Mobile and Vodafone along with Spains Telefonica Moviles said the alliance will enable customers across Europe to securely buy digital or physical goods using their handsets.

3 Debitel KPN Mobile Group O2 and TMN have also expressed an interest in joining.

The alliance hopes to establish an industry standard that will enable merchants and operators to press on with the roll-out of more mobile payment-enabled services.

Mobile payments or m-payments have already been trialled with varying degrees of success. Companies hope to use the technology to drive sales of low-ticket products which are priced so as to preclude credit card payments.

The history of the mobile phone industry shows that major business volumes only came when customers had the freedom to reach across and interact with any network said Tim Jones newly-appointed chiefexecutive officer of the Mobile Payment Services Association which will be based in London.

Jones has held a number of senior executive positions including chief executive of retail banking at National Westminster Bank.

He also co-founded and headed the now-defunct Mondex electronic cash initiative within National Westminster Bank.

The job has gone to Scott Thomas previously a sales director at Argos Group e-commerce acquisition Jungle.com where he oversaw sales across multiple channels such as retail outfits business-to-business routes and online services.

Thomass main task will be to replicate the retail success of Phones 4U online.