The company will continue trading under the Motolec name and all 41 staff will be retained.

Motolec had a turnover last year of 4 million selling cell phones accessories car sat-nav equipment and car audio products from Nakamichi Alpine Kenwood Pioneer and Sony.

This is a very exciting acquisition on the road to making Chameleon the biggest UK installer of every kind of in-car equipment said Chameleon chief executive Phil Stanley.

Added group managing director Steve Sharratt:

Chameleon has acquired Motolec due to the synergy between its car audio business and NCFs specialisation in cell phone equipment. We plan to dramatically increase the number of outlets and our product range and add to our existing network of 160 engineers to provide a nationwide installation service.

The centre will create 500 new jobs and will employ 1500 people. This brings to 4500 the total number of Orange employees in the region. It is the third Orange communications centre to be established in the North East. The network has spent over 28 million in customer communications centres in the last year alone. Orange says the centre is one of the most advanced centres in Europe.

The contract includes the provision of 6000 mobile phones together with fully managed mobile data services for ICLs entire force of home-based Servicelink engineers.

Vodafone Corporate has equip-ped 1000 ICL Servicelink engineers with ICL-badged Nokia 9110 Communicator phones for two-way data and voice communication between ICLs host computer based at Stevenage and Servicelink engineers.

Job scheduling instructions and emergency job allocations are sent to the remote Servicelink engineers via SMS. On completion of the job the Servicelink engineer is able to update the ICL computer with job closing stock control updates and invoicing details.

To handle the volume of two-way data and SMS traffic between the ICL central host and the remote Servicelink engineers Vodafone installed fixed kilostream links from the Vodafone network into the ICL call centre site at Stevenage.

Ackroyd was one of Oras original members of staff when the company was set up around 10 years ago by founder Malcolm Hanson.

He left Ora last month following a shake-up of executives by new sales head John McLuskie.

Also Fone Range production director Mehmet Ali Soylu has joined The Accessory People as its international sales and logistics director.

The company has called in web-integration specialist Orbis to develop the system which will equip Virgin Mobile handsets with links to the Virgin Mobile e-commerce gateway.

The software being designed provides inline checking from validating a credit card through to authorising airtime and equipment payment.

E-commerce is an integral part of our service. The Orbis payment manager system allows us to offer customers a sales process which differentiates us from the other four existing phone networks said Virgin Mobile MD Tom Alexander.

This follows a partnership between Schlumberger and Webraska Mobile Technologies who intend to combine data on parking place occupancy with real-time traffic information maps and route guidance.

WAP users will be able to key in their location or destination. A combination of Schlumberger parking data and Webraskas Internet-Navigation services will transmit a real-time update of available parking in the surrounding streets and car parks en-route traffic information maps and best route to the chosen parking place.

The parking terminals and management systems of Schlumberger will transmit current occupancy rates data across GSM Mobitex PSTN or internet networks to the Parking Information Server.

The server calculates occupancy levels for the area and whether the number of available parking spaces is increasing or decreasing. Webraskas servers will then calculate the best itinerary and guide the phone user to their chosen location.

This partnership with Schlumberger is a logical step for Webraska adding an essential aspect of urban mobility – where to leave your car upon arrival to our current services that help mobile phone users reach their destination as effortlessly as possible said Webraska founder Jean-Michel Durocher.

This agreement is also a significant advance in our efforts to provide mobile phone operators and their subscribers with value-added proximity services.

Added Schlumberger marketing manager Axel Hausen:

This new service will help city local and regional governments to significantly improve their image in the eyes of vehicle drivers and contribute substantially to revitalising city centres and leisure areas.

Webraska claims to be the worlds first provider of value-added real-time traffic information maps and navigation services on mobile internet phones. Webraskas goal is to provide an alternative to CD-rom-based car navigation systems using its patented internet-based Distributed Navigation.

Webraskas services use digital map servers and are currently available to subscribers of SFR in France and KPN in the Netherlands. Webraska has also linked with Trafficmaster in the UK.

Listeners can access games and competitions current playlists and even buy music by logging on to www.wap.virginradio.com.

The service currently transmits information about the song being played a chance to purchase the record on-air schedule details of advertisers including telephone numbers and links to their own web and WAP sites.

We were the first radio station in Europe to broadcast continuously on the internet and we now have one of the most popular online radio stations in the world said Virgin Radio chief executive John Pearson.

Nearly three quarters of Virgin Radio listeners do their listening on the move and our vision is to provide them with the information they want at the right time and the right place. We expect to see increased convergence of audio and data services especially with the arrival of digital radio and third generation networks. As a broadcaster we intend to be at the leading edge of such new initiatives Pearson added.

Called Personal Roadwatch 1800 the jointly-developed Vodafone and AA system comprises an in-car signaller that picks up data from Trafficmaster beacons and informs drivers of potential delays up to 15 miles or three junctions ahead on all motorways trunk roads and A roads.

The in-car unit indicates the direction of the delay its likely duration and the distance to the traffic jam.

To get more detailed information the driver dials 1800 on a GSM phone connected to Vodafone.

The call is connected to the AA/Vodafone Personal Roadwatch service which identifies the area of the country the caller is in and delivers more comprehensive details of traffic conditions in that area.

Calls to the 1800 number cost 45p a minute for automated information and 59p a minute for operator service.

We have invested a significant amount of time and effort to ensure that the Personal Roadwatch 1800 service is helpful and intuitive to use as possible said Vodafone managing director Alan Harper.

Vodafones traffic management links with the AA go back to 1995 when it launched the AA/Vodafone Roadwatch service.

BTCellnet is also heavily involved in traffic-based promotions and has sponsored the Capital Radio Flying Eye service for years.

Cellnets Traffic Line service won the Mobile News Award for Most Innovative Service in 1998.

This is the view of Nick Ryman-Tubb of Neaural Computing which designs fraud-detection software for networks.

If as predicted the number of mobile phone users over the next few years rises from last years figure of 382 million to a billion fraud may rise relatively.

Last year fraud cost the mobile phone industry over $3 billion. So if subscriber figures were to reach a billion fraud is set to cost the industry around $7.8 billion a year. This one billion figure is likely to be realised with the introduction of the third-generation mobile and WAP phones he said.

Whichever way you look at it the perpetration of fraud whether subscriber fraud cloning or application fraud is a serious threat to profitability and shareholder value.

Network operators need to view fraud detection as an integral part of their strategic business plan and be armed with a range of technological advancements.

Visorgraph says its wapHQ service now offers a low-cost mobile phone internet access service with no registration or set-up fees and no monthly subscription charges to pay. The service is provided on an 0845 number and is charged at local call rates.

To initialise the service a user with computer access to the internet can obtain configuration information from the WAPHQ web site (www.wapHQ.co.uk) and e-mail users may subscribe on-line at the same time.

Facilities are provided entirely free-of-charge.