Zinc-Air disposable batteries are said to be able to give three to five times more talktime and standby than conventional rechargeable batteries.

Banner Telecom has been given sole distribution rights to the batteries which are made by Electric Fuel.

Services will be offered to Guernseys 15000 GSM mobile subscribers from February 2000. Services through UK-based Digital Mobility will be locally-tailored content to businesses and consumers on the island.

Digital Mobility takes content from third-party providers to mobile phone users

While the rest of the world is still talking about the potential of WAP Digital Mobility and Guernsey Telecom have spent the last year creating a real platform for mobile commerce and information solutions says Digital Mobility director of products and services Marcus Taylor.

WAP represents an ideal delivery channel for financial and information services. But the skill lies in delivering an end-user experience thats easy to use fun and highly personal.

This extra allocation supplements the networks existing 900MHz capacity.

It enables more customers to use their Vodafones at any one time especially in busy areas such as cities and large towns where they will benefit most from increased network capacity said Vodafone Ltd managing director Alan Harper.

The growth in mobile phone ownership and level of usage has increased at a greater rate than even the most optimistic forecasts

By using our 1800MHz allocation to increase capacity in the busiest areas we can ensure that our customers experience optimum network quality by being able to successfully connect a call first time wherever they are said Harper.

Roll-out of the 1800Mhz section of the network has already begun in Reading and will be followed by central London and Manchester before Christmas. The roll-out will continue during 2000 concentrating on towns and cities throughout the UK where a need for increased capacity has been identified.

To take advantage of Vodafones 1800 capacity customers need to have a dual-band handset.

The Vodafone network has been configured to automatically switch extra capacity to the 1800Mhz bandwidth used by the handset .

The expectation is that at busy times quality of service is improved further.

Customers can log on to orange.net using any phone that has web access to retrieve their mail from their registered e-mail address. On registration customers get on-line calendars which can be used to organise their work and social lives. The calendars reminder feature can send an alert as an e-mail or text message to the customers phone to alert them to forthcoming appointments important dates or events such as birthdays.

The reminder feature can also send regular messages every week month or as desired for regular events such as meetings or report deadlines.

Orange is unshackling the web from the restrictions of fixed line delivery giving people interaction with the internet without the need for a phone line or cable-link. Everyone with an Orange phone can now get to the information they need on the move said Orange chief Hans Snook.

Orange users can access account details on-line to check account information pay bills or change your service plans in a secure environment.

The site tells them how many inclusive minutes they have left lets them check customer details set up direct debits to pay bills or pay on-line by credit card.

The idea is that customers may not need to call Orange customer services again because they can access their own Orange account details.

They can also set up cancel or change watches and requests for text information.

This service can configure news on a large range of subjects from share prices to lottery numbers to individual circumstances such as horoscopes or the sports results the latest news headlines and stories for the UK the world and business news.

Orange is also nearly ready to unveil a high speed data service which will enable orange.net customers to access the internet at data speeds of up to 28.8kbps equivalent to fixed-line speeds.

This is three times the current mobile access speeds. Compression technology gives speeds of up to 64kbps.

Future services will combine the location pinpointing quality of the mobile phone and the information resources of the internet. A customer will be able to select a kind of restaurant or a particular banks ATM on their handset and receive directions or even a map direct from the internet.

Orange says media translation from speech to text and vice versa will become possible for messages allowing an e-mail to reach the customers phone as a voice message.

Transactional services will also develop rapidly making on-line shopping banking and booking services available. Snook envisages that with the Orange videophone people will for example be able to see a clip of the goals in the latest England football match.

You only have to look at the statistics to realise that orange.net heralds a new era in wirefree communications said Snook.

There are more people with mobile phones than there are who access the internet. Around the world there are an estimated 200 million internet users but there are more than 300 million people with a mobile phone.

With the launch of orange.net we are bringing the internet to this wider audience. Everyone with an Orange phone can now get to the information you need on the move.

The partnership will develop e-commerce and develop open standards such as WAP Bluetooth and SET (Secure Electronic Transaction) for payment transactions over wireless networks that can be used by other vendors and organisations.

One area of development will be a wireless wallet. This will be a conventional wallet for bills and coins but will also contain smart card readers.

A smart card inserted into the wallet will be able to talk to a Bluetooth mobile phone and upload and download electronic cash balances.

Ericsson predicts that within the next 10 years consumers will increasingly rely on non-PC devices such as the mobile phone to access the internet.

The advent of mobile phones which can access the internet and receive messages over the air will provide Visa and its member banks with a whole new opportunity to offer convenient and exciting services to cardholders on the move said Visas vice president of internet and access channels.

An example of a new service made possible by this technology is the targeted promotion of concert or theatre tickets.

This service will make it possible for mobile phone subscribers to be notified on an event before tickets are sold out.

The user can purchase tickets immediately over the internet using a WAP phone. The tickets are then sent electronically to the phone and stored on the smart card in the wireless wallet.

When the concert-goer arrives at the theatre he or she presents the smart card to the ticket clerk at the theatre who can download the ticket information and print out the tickets.

Said Ericsson general manager for wireless solutions Jan Lindgren:

We look forward to working in collaboration with Visa to expand secure mobile e-commerce solutions.

Ready to Go customers will be able to send and receive SMS messages of up to 160 characters at 10p for each message sent. Receipt of incoming messages is free.

Eircell is delighted to be the first mobile operator in Ireland to offer pre-paid customers SMS capability said Eircell chief executive Stephen Brewer.

Eircell recently brought out an off-peak tariff for post-pay customers which allowed them 200 minutes a month for 25 a month for calls made after 6pm.

However rival network Esat Digifone stole a march on Eircell last month when it announced it would be investing more than IR 1.5 million in a WAP service that will allow its customers to access some internet content news sport weather airline information betting odds stock prices and entertainment news from the screen of their handset.

Brewer says at least a fifth of the Irish population now has a mobile phone connected to Eircell.

We aim to make mobile phone insurance as easy and as profitable to sell as an accessory said Intec sales and marketing director Charlo Carabott.

Handset policies are still prohibitively high for many subscribers.

Intecs insurance now offers customers the lowest and most attractive premiums available he claimed.

Intec says it has introduced a paperless procedure for selling the cover. Dealers are being offered the option to package the policies as they choose and are available to any dealer who have a credit line with them. Intecs insurance package is the first of a roll-out of services in addition to its core business of servicing and repairing handsets.

The company wants to establish itself as the leading post-sales support specialist.

The campaign continues the v dot theme currently used in Virgin Mobiles TV and print ads with a mix of banners and buttons on key target sites in the UK. Virgin aims to sell 25 per cent of its phones over the web by the end of its first year.

We guarantee a purchase of a phone in just three clicks from our home page. Our web strategy is to sell an enormous amount of phones on-line this Christmas. E-commerce is the way of the future and central to Virgin Mobiles philosophy said Virgin Mobile brand director James Kydd.

The phone is at the heart of two rapidly growing markets the internet and mobile communications which are finding points of convergence. And we are at its vanguard. One of our key target markets for Virgin Mobile is PC owners especially those that are currently online Kydd claimed.

V.attractive features a button with a magnet attracting lots of Virgin Mobile logos and will run on Easyeverything X-Stream Motley Fool and Zoom.

V.sexy features lots of Vs coming together to make a row of XXXXs becoming v.sexy and will appear on Sky Sports FHM Online and Handbag.com.

V.ip rotates with the word only and will run on film site Popcorn.co.uk and Time Out on-line.

V.sound features a spinning vinyl record and will run on Virgin Radio and the Ministry of Sound websites were aiming for 25 per cent of our sales.

We want our customers to be able to use the web from their phones. All Virgin Mobile phones come with complete mobile e-mail compatibility for any e-mail user. Whether they use Freeserve AOL or Virgin Net or any other provider for that matter said Kydd

Meanwhile Virgin Mobile has joined four other competitors tendering to provide Virgin Rail with mobile phone business.

The deal is for between 1000 and 2000 phones and is just one of many commercial contracts Virgin Mobile is looking at according to a Virgin spokesman.

A number of entertainment content channels are to be launched over the next year for WAP enabled mobile phones and wireless PDAs as well as the growing market for portable wireless games consoles.

The games range from simple quiz and puzzle games to more elaborate multi-user gaming experiences.

Games currently available for WAP devices include single player Quizcall a multi-choice quiz game; Hangman Codebreaker and Follow Me. Multi-player titles available and in development are Fours Tic Tack Toe a two-player Pokemon-style fighting game multi-player Poker Black Jack Horse Racing and Fight KOs .

Our vision is to create mobile entertainment platforms giving people access to entertainment any place at any time said Digital Bridges managing director Kevin Bradshaw.