It has now been recognised by the independent institute that carried out the tests that their procedures were fatally flawed and led to a wholly inaccurate set of results being obtained said Philips Consumer Communications marketing manager Tim Mashman.

No Philips mobile phone exceeds any international or local radiation standards.

Customers of the banks personalised banking service Open Plan will be able to run their accounts regardless of network by using their phones to dial-up their Internet service provider at their usual call rates.

The first group of customers are to be offered a free Nokia 7110 WAP-compliant phone with one years service contract in return for taking part in a market research programme. They will be able to check balances on all of their Woolwich accounts (including mortgage and unit trusts) move funds between accounts view current and investment account statements pay bills and issue instructions. The knowledge gathered as a result of this exercise will be used in planning the roll-out of the service to all Open Plan customers.

John Stewart group chief executive of The Woolwich commented:

I am delighted that Nokia has chosen us as its partner and Imconfident that our customers will find this service superior to any other mobile phone banking offer that is on the market

CMC has recently moved to become a fixed-line service provider as well as mobile distributor.

The company recently became a reseller for Energis offering least-cost routing to businesses.

The company says it intends to become a total telecoms provider offering all business-related telecoms products.

The African contract is with Mobile Systems International Cellular Investments (MSICI) the holding company behind a number of GSM network operators.

The Spanish agreement is with Airtel Movil whose shareholders including VodafoneAirtouch BT and Banco Central Hispano.

The MSICI agreement requires European Telecom to supply products and a range of integrated services including marketing distribution service repair and consultancy to networks in Malawi Congo Zambia and Gabon.

The Airtel deal is for three years with an option to extend for another two years.

It makes European Telecom the sole provider of pre-pay services for Airtel.

These include quality control re-packaging and despatch of two million handsets a year.

Airtel is the second-largest network operator in Spain and has around 32 per cent of the Spanish market.

These agreements demonstrate European Telecoms position as an international value-added telecoms company and confirm our drive into higher-margin business said European Telecom chairman Warren Hardy.

European Telecoms strategy is to move its sales towards high quality revenue streams with better margins which moves it away from its origins as purely a box-shifting operation.

The aim is to have more than 400 WAP engineers and consultants by the end of this year to kick-start the technology and find applications.

The expertise of the 400 consultants is being promoted in an advertising campaign in seven European countries.

The campaign focuses on banking and finance travel and transport and media and entertainment.

To promote the venture Ericsson has set up a special web site at www.ericsson.com/letswap.

WAP is one of those technologies which quickly captures the markets attention said Ericsson Business consulting vice president Kennet Radne.

Many companies now realise that these technologies are changing the face of the business world in which they operate. They may not understand exactly how and why but they are aware that they need to change and adapt.

The WAP ad campaign runs until December 15 to explain the applications of WAP-enabled mobile phones to businesses.

Security guard Joseph Lawson (20) and unemployed Leroy Semper (23) are charged with forcefully robbing Fuzum Tewende of the phone and his wallet in a burger bar in Victoria station on August 31.

This is the amount needed to finance the companys immediate cash needs.

The letters were reported to the bankruptcy court in Delaware on October 18

ICO says there is reasonable assurance that the company can meet its financing requirements to begin global mobile satellite services currently expected to start in April 2001.

ICO chief executive Richard Greco said:

I am very pleased with the support shown by strategic investors to our new business plan and financing plan. By aggressively reducing costs we have cut our financing requirements by almost 30 per cent to $1.2 billion which is the amount needed to begin our global mobile satellite service. We have started to turn the corner with the new ICO and are pressing onward to emerge from Chapter 11 complete our system and start service.

Digifone has decided to name its contract offerings to popularise the cost advantages over pre-pay.

The generic name is Select with Select 1 Select 2 and Select 3 catering for the light medium and heavy user.

Three add-on options called Weekender Plus World Plus and Message Plus can supplement the basic offering for an additional charge.

Select 1 replaces DigiLite and adds an inclusive call value of IR 3.75 for a monthly charge of IR 10.00.

Select 2 at a IR 20.00 monthly replaces DigiFlex and provides IR 7.50 of inclusive calls.

Select 3 is for high volume users and costs IR 30 per month with a IR 15.00 inclusive call value. Peak rate calls are on a sliding scale ranging from 12.5p to 17.5p depending on the total monthly duration. The Plus options allow customers to make additional savings and can be added in any combination at IR 5 each per month or IR 10 for all three.

Weekender Plus permits a headline rate of 2p per min for all same network and national calls during the weekend period.

World Plus is for business travellers and offers half price international calls.

Digifone CEO Barry Maloney said the discounts would only apply to calls made within Digifones network. International calls made to Digifone roamers or calls made on foreign networks would be excluded. Maloney said the new offering would make Digifone up to 15 per cent more competitive against rival Eircell. Digifone now has 460000 customers and a 41 per cent share of the total mobile market with 49 per cent of the GSM market.

Irish mobile penetration has now reached 30 per cent ahead of the UK and European average.

Average call durations are almost double those in other countries Maloney said.

By creating partnerships such as this we will be able to develop wireless and multimedia applications. These services represent an enormous market opportunity and should develop rapdly to meet demands of mobile customers said VodafoneAirtouch CEO Chris Gent.

As of mid-October production of the T28 was at the targeted rate.

But capacity to fulfill customer demand will not be achieved until the first quarter of next year.

For the full year Ericsson previously estimated a total market volume of 240 to 260 million phones at the upper end of the range.

Ericssons plan was to capture a 15 per cent unit volume market share. This plan required Ericsson to produce 32 to 39 million units in 1999 to give it a market share of 12 to 13 percent for the full year.

Falling margins on consumer handsets caused Ericssons overall gross profit margin to dip two per cent in the last quarter. But net sales were up 14 percent compared with the third quarter of last year.

Operating expenses for the nine months were up 21 percent over last year or 33 percent of sales. R&D costs so far this year have been 16 per cent of sales for increased research into 3G mobile systems datacom technologies (IP and ATM) and new mobile phones.

The amount of phones produced by Ericsson was up 29 percent over last year to 21 million units. But the company agrees the ramp-up of production for the new product range has been slower than planned especially for the high-volume units like A1018 and T10.

This has affected sales and profitability negatively even though Ericsson says customer demand for the new models is very strong. The company expects a recovery in production capacity in time for the segment to meet fourth quarter targets.

Ericsson says it remains optimistic of the future of the business. It has increased its forecast for the number of mobile subscribers to more than one billion worldwide by year-end 2003.

Ericsson also expects that there will be almost 400 million mobile Internet users at the end of 2004. Some 120 million of these users are expected to be served by 3G technologies.