A spokesman from O2 confirmed that this was the last regulatory hurdle and that the deal was almost certain to be completed by mid-February. The Spanish telecoms giant said last Tuesday that it was withdrawing the minimum acceptances condition it set in October after it had received acceptances from 62 per cent of O2 shareholders.

Telefonica offered 18 billion for O2 late last year.

In November O2 said group turnover grew 12 per cent to 3.6 billion in the six months ending September 30.

The freebie calls are available to customers up to the end of May who sign up for a Cellnet core tariff join First in Freedom or sign up for a contract by the end of June.

Customers nominate their numbers from their First for Families list. They can then make free calls weekdays between 7pm and 8pm and all weekend. The cost of the calls to the two chosen numbers will be credited to their account.

Cellnet will be promoting the Two for Free promotion with a heavyweight TV and press campaign starting tomorrow (April 7). In-store promotions will also be used.

O2s total customer base in the UK Ireland and Germany grew 17 per cent year-on-year to 25.7 million. Its total turnover grew 12 per cent to 3.6 billion over the period.

Erskine said: The consumer is the winner in an intensely competitive market. But we added more than a million customers in the past three months and Im sure people will agree that its we and Vodafone that are the winners.

O2 said that 55 per cent of its growth came through its direct sales channels compared with just 48 per cent a year ago.

An O2 spokesman said: We are more reliant on our own channels which is good because it cuts out the middleman. Its very telling that 55 per cent of our growth comes through our own channels – our retail outlets on the high street and our online sales routes. A year ago it was only 48 per cent. And the sales through direct channels are the customers who tend to stick with us.

He added: Were growing our overall base through all our channels. Because the brand is successful and we have had a series of very good quarters independent retail also benefits.

O2 UK added 702000 new customers in the first half taking the total active base to 15.086 million – excluding Tesco Mobiles base of 750000 pre-pay customers.

Contract customers comprised 45 per cent of subscriber growth for the period and accounts for 35 per cent of its total UK base.

* Meanwhile Vodafone said this week that its UK subscriber base reached 15.8 million in the six months to September 30 up from 14.6 million in the same period last year.

However UK revenue remained flat and UK ARPU was down 6.4 per cent from a year ago to 24.90 at September 30.

Vodafone said non-voice revenue had increased by 12.1 per cent driven by a 57.9 per cent increase in non-messaging revenue to 103 million.

It attributed the surge to the increase in volume of Vodafone live! devices 3G devices and 3G data cards. Vodafone said it had 3.9 million active 3G devices in the UK.

A BBC spokesman told Mobile News that it has now launched an investigation together with its technology contractor Siemens UK.

There are 300 BlackBerry users using the Vodafone network across the BBC he said.

The devices are issued to senior executives or staff who need remote access to their e-mails.

We were alerted to the problem when we had some complaints that BlackBerry users were receiving e-mails containing extracts from e-mails intended for other recipients within the body.

The spokesman refused to comment on speculation that the error had led to sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. I cant comment on that but what I will say is that things not going to the people for whom they were intended is of serious concern to the BBC. We had no choice but to suspend the entire service until we can be satisfied that it is secure to use.

A RIM spokeswoman said the problem was caused by a glitch. RIM has developed and tested a fix for an obscure bug identified in a service pack release for BlackBerry Enterprise Server she said.

She claimed the bug was isolated to version 4.02 and does not exist in version 4.03 or in other earlier versions. RIM said it was aware of a single reported incident of the bug and responded promptly with a fix.

The bug related to a rare conjunction of circumstances whereby v4.02 failed to properly compensate for an unusual memory allocation error generated by a companys mail server she said. It consequently appended a partial message to another e-mail.

Neither the original message or the appended partial message were ever exposed outside the companys firewall and the bug did not generate any external risk. Customers using v4.02 may obtain this fix from RIM or install v4.03.

See Webwatch page 20

The findings from mobile device management company SmartTrusts Mobile Trends Guide 2005/06 shows that consumers are struggling to keep pace with the rapid deployment of new handset features and data services as well as complex pricing structures and poor usability.

These problems have been compounded by growing instances of poor handset configuration and have led to lower than expected usage rates for value-added services such as picture messaging and mobile content downloads.

In fact the survey which was carried out by market research company TNS shows that just 43 per cent of MMS-enabled handsets have ever been used to send a picture message.

15 per cent of users have had problems when trying to use their operators MMS service said Tim De Luca-Smith communications manager at SmartTrust and author of the guide.

In a high percentage of cases the service simply didnt work because of poor handset configuration and network settings. There is a real need to make such services more intuitive and remove consumer concerns over reliability and pricing.

We live in a plug-and-play society and todays mobile users expect services to work first time every time. They dont want to be left wondering whether their message was actually delivered.

Huntingford 49 is CEO of Chrysalis Group which runs UK commercial radio group Chrysalis Radio and UK independent music publisher Chrysalis Music. The latter represents David Gray and Outkast among other artists.

Huntingford has been CEO since 2000 after spending a year as group managing director and five years as chief executive of the radio division.

Virgin Mobile chairman Charles Gurassa said: Richard brings top-level commercial experience and a strong financial background to the board of Virgin Mobile. We are delighted to appoint someone of his calibre as our fifth non-executive director.

FTI chairman Anthony Elliot-Square told Mobile News that the industry body had received more than 100 reports from traders that have been issued with a notice to close their accounts.

It started about 18 months ago when a number of our members started to receive 30 days notice from a range of high street banks to close down their accounts said Elliot-Square. There were no grounds given. A lot of them had substantial funds in their accounts and had been with the banks for a number of years. They were given this notice out of the blue.

Barclays Natwest and Bank Of Scotland have all closed accounts because they perceive the industry to be rife with fraud claimed traders.

One trader said: Only a few companies are still dealing with Barclays because it has this attitude towards the industry. I know that the Royal Bank Of Scotland and Natwest have also kicked a lot of traders out.

Last month Eurostar Group founder and managing director Peter Carnall was given 30 days notice by Bank Of Scotland Business Banking that it was closing the accounts of the Stoke groups distribution business Eurostar Telecom and its software business Eurostar Technologies.

Carnall said: Banks have a blanket policy of turning down and closing down small business accounts instead of reviewing each trader on a case-by-case basis.

Barclays said that it had no blanket policy towards the mobile phone trade in the light of carousel fraud. It said that it judges each customer on its merits and will close accounts in the event that it suspects fraudulent activity.

If we suspect someone of fraud then we have to be very careful because we are bound by regulatory standards said a Barclays spokesperson. But we havent imposed an overarching policy because of carousel fraud.

Natwest and Bank Of Scotland were unavailable for comment.

See feature page 28

Qualcomm is accused of violating European competition law by refusing to license patents it holds on 3G technology to competitors and over-charging on royalties for the licences it does issue.

Ericsson vice-president for IPR licensing and patent development Kasim Alflahi said: Qualcomm made commitments to standard-setting organisations that it would licence its technology on fair reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. In spite of this and in breach of competition law Qualcomm is charging excessive and disproportionate royalties. It means that consumers may have to pay more than they should for their handsets.

Qualcom has dismissed the complaints saying it granted more than 130 3G technology licences to companies including five of the six requesting an investigation.

Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs said: It is not surprising that the reported allegations come largely from entrenched 2G suppliers that have the most to lose from the enhanced and expanded competition in 3G.

Palm president and CEO Ed Colligan said the company had neglected the European market up to now but the European smartphone market was at a tipping point and that Palm now had a local presence to better address the needs of networks and subscribers in the region.

The European market represents a huge opportunity that we have so far under-exploited said Colligan.

There is enormous penetration of standard phones but smartphones are just beginning to take off.

He added: The demand for wireless e-mail the deployment of 3G networks and the popularity of digital in general has changed the dynamic [of the market] and will drive our business.

Colligan claimed European operators had unique needs.

In the US they are out of sight and out of mind he said. There is always a trade-off of resources in a company. If [US network operator] Verizon wants to buy 150 million units and Orange wants to buy 50 million who will you go with? We now want to make the European market self-sufficient and to understand it better.

Colligan said the European market represented 380 million mobile subscribers who will with time tend to migrate towards higher-end devices. He added that of around 50 million mobile workers in Europe few use e-mail on their mobile devices. That alone represents a great opportunity he said.

The objective of the Dublin centre is to be able to quickly deploy Palm devices to operators and subscribers in the EMEA region. It will be responsible for developing core technologies such as 3G supporting operators certification processes and implementing radio technology and operator-specific services.

It is impossible to serve carriers without a local presence said Colligan. The end-user usage pattern in Europe is different from other parts of the world so we want to have a presence on the ground.

The Dublin R&D centre located north of the city at Swords is staffed by just seven engineers at present but Colligan said numbers would rise to 35 by the end of the year.

We will start with testing and certification and grow it into a broader development centre to build [devices] from scratch he said. It is a 10-year vision. Our vision is that handheld computing is the future of computers. In the future people will turn to these devices first.

We are focused on bringing complex computer programmes to small handheld devices. There is no logical reason why we shouldnt have the same success in this market as we have enjoyed in the US.

Micheal Martin Irelands minister for enterprise trade and employment said:

Palm represents an important addition to the emerging wireless sector in this country a key target area for IDA Ireland (Industrial Development Agency).

He added: This centre is to service the EMEA region so that Palm is close to operators in Europe. There is an inextricable link between research and the marketplace. The market has to inform the research and not the other way around.

Palms Microsoft OS-based Treo device is expected to ship in Q3 2006.

Hampshire police said that the Vertu Ascent handsets which had a retail value of 190000 were worth around 40000 to Nokia the manufacturer.

The handsets were destined for the Russian mobile phone market when they were intercepted and have Russian text printed on them.

Detective Sergeant Dave Storey said: These phones are distinctive. We need to know where these mobile phones are now.

I am appealing particularly to those people who may have heard from friends or associates about who has the handsets now or where they are being stored. Have you been offered them for sale? Do you know where they are being stored?

Police said that a member of the public called at 3pm on November 1 to report seeing two men in a blue 3-series BMW approach a white Volkswagen van on Cove Road holding what appeared to be a gun.

Police said the two men stopped the delivery truck and handcuffed and blindfolded the driver before driving both vehicles away.

Thames Valley Police then received an anonymous call from a public telephone in Sandhurst at 4:11pm telling them where the driver of the van was.

Both driver and van were found at Swan Valley Lakes in nearby Blackwater. Police said that the driver was unharmed but was shocked and frightened by the incident.

Someone made an anonymous call from a telephone kiosk near Albion Road in Sandhurst that Tuesday afternoon telling us where the driver and van had been left said Storey.

If you saw anyone acting suspiciously last Tuesday either around that telephone kiosk in Sandhurst or at Swan Valley Lakes in Blackwater please contact us.

Anyone with information relating to the hijacking can contact the Operation Tamarillo team in Aldershot CID on 0845 045 4545 or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.