Person-to-person figures for April are up by one million on the previous month and confirm predictions of a steady growth in text messaging following the billion landmark figure first topped in August 2001 said the MDA.

Britons now send 44 million text messages each day across the four UK GSM network operators compared to only 30 million sent in April 2001. This takes the annual total so far to 5.2 billion against a 12-month MDA forecast of 16 billion for 2002.

A continued rise in UK text message usage is expected for May predict MDA experts as Jubilee Bank Holiday arrangements are made.

The handset manufacturer announced the deal at a mobile gaming roundtable meeting in London last week. The distribution deal sees Motorola join forces with content provider iFone.

Juan Montes Motorola vice-president of technology and content solutions for the personal communications sector says:

A lot of people remember Atari games and have a great fondness for them. The good thing about bringing classic games to mobile phones is that there wont be any loss of graphics or detail.

The defining characteristic of these games is their stickiness. People didnt love them for their great graphics but because they were so addictive. That is what you need in a phone game.

According to Montes the company is not going to set up a Club Motorola but instead will offer the games to other handset manufacturers.

Motorola senior content product manager Kenny Mathers adds:

To begin with games will be available on the Motorola handsets. This will give our handsets a differentiation. But later on games will be able to run across all handsets. Maybe different games will be available.

How consumers will buy games is still to be determined. According to Mathers games will either be installed completely in new handsets or will be partly installed and will be activated by calling a certain number.

He says: Another option is to sell games over the counter with dealers selling a boxed code or a scratchcard with a PIN number on it. The industry is moving forward. We would of course provide sales support to dealers including training and sales material. There would have to be a lot of education at retail level.

Mathers is confident that the first games will be available by September with two or three titles appearing a month after.

As reported in Mobile News (May 13) Algeria-born Kamel Rebbouth had been charged on four counts of dishonestly handling stolen Sim cards last November.

He had been further charged on four counts of dishonestly handling stolen mobile phones including a Samsung A300 a Nokia 8210 a Nokia 3210 and a Sony Z5.

Set for release in March the tri-band V200 follows the standard Samsung clamshell design with the camera lens positioned in the hinge.

The camera has a 100kb photo-storage capacity.

The new phone also boasts 40-bit polyphonic sound and a 65000 colour TFD screen and comes with one-touch GPRS access to the Internet.

A retail price has yet to be set by the manufacturer.

So says online mobile entertainment and information company WapOneline which carried out a survey into users habits.

The 100 users questioned said they regularly used their phone for entertainment mostly to send text messages to friends to alleviate the boredom of commuting or during quiet moments in the office.

Of these people 67 per cent said they would welcome text-based dating services.

They said a mobile phone offered privacy because it was easier to conceal than an internet service.

The potential for mobile dating is massive said WapOneline.

Of those not interested in SMS dating the research revealed that 46 per cent of people would welcome a service that would let them send romantic messages to people they had met.

Vodafone products offered include a range of Pay As You Talk phones and tariffs as well as pay-monthly consumer and data tariffs. Connections will be made through Vodafones in-house service provision while the operator will be providing full product and operational training to The Link staff in the stores participating in the trial.

A spokesperson for The Link says: We have been selling top-up vouchers for Vodafone since September 2001 so this is not a completely new partnership.

The mobile retail environment has changed and the requirements of the networks have changed. Everyone expects to see a rise in ARPU and this development is a reflection of that. By having the Vodafone range of products onboard The Link is able to offer a wider range of products to our customers.

They are 31E Cellular Euro Fonehouse Intek Communications JAG Communications (Plymouth) Microbar New World Communications Oasis Communications and Scancom Communications.

Orange aims to increase its network of business specialists throughout the country in phase two of the programme. The Orange Business Specialist programme was launched last year to help qualifying dealers sell to small businesses with less than 50 employees.

Dealers must have been established for a minimum of three years. They must have experience in selling to businesses and have a business sales force a dedicated customer service helpline and a telesales operation capable of generating business and handling leads generated by Orange.

The first 14 dealers were chosen by geographical location. Orange plans to run national advertising campaigns and direct marketing campaigns funnelling leads to the business specialists by postcode.

Chosen dealers get branded stationery point-of-sale material and sales brochures. Orange also gives the specialists access to a dedicated business customer service team based in

Darlington. Further benefits include access to data products at preferential rates from a nominated third-party supplier and customer training to help the specialists seize opportunities to sell new technologies.

Other benefits include better rates on commissions and the freedom to offer discounts on hardware without having to refer back to Orange.

Orange also provides special exhibition and seminar programmes where dealers can invite customers to view the latest data technologies. Its business customer service team also gives the appointed dealers sequential numbering for their customers.

Abrar Hussain (20) pleaded guilty to obtaining the phone by deception. He was ordered to pay 150 prosecution costs.

In another case a graphic designer accused of stealing more than 1000 worth of phones from the Orange Shop at Victoria Station London was remanded on unconditional bail until Wednesday (June 11).

Michael Wei Hung Fund (24) is charged with stealing five mobile phones worth 1043 from the shop in April. He is also charged with using criminal deception to obtain 220 in credit for mobile phone use and a further 130 of credit on December 5 last year.

The software is available to handset manufacturers and developers to aid them in creating improved interfaces. It accelerates standard Java games. Graphical manipulations and multi-layered graphics are supported.

There is no breaking news no press releases and we are not here to talk about the companys financials said Lauri Kivinen senior vice president corporate communications as he kicked off the two-day briefing.

What was on offer was confirmation of many of the key trends in the market. In particular the growth of non-voice messaging.

President of Nokia Pekka Ala-Pietila spoke about the future of the industry he says:

People have come to expect moblility in their lives. As a result whatever can be moved to mobile is and will be moved to mobile it really is as simple as that.

There has been a period of unprecedented growth in mobility and voice that has led to a new customer behaviour. This will continue with the explosive growth of messaging.

This growth according to Ala-Pietila will culminate in 35 per cent of ARPU coming in from non-voice revenue by 2006. In addition the improvement in the services that will be offered will help drive ARPU.

He says: In 1999 there were 46million text messages sent a day. Today the figure is at over 800million a day. This is phenomenal growth for such a basic service.

We expect to see growth continue over the next couple of years. In Japan last April ARPU was 11 per cent. By March this year it was at 20 per cent. The same thing will happen in Europe.

Ala-Pietila says that this non-voice revenue can be split into five key services: person to person infotainment business services advertising and transaction.

He says these services will create the growth and allow companies like Nokia to build packages for consumers. But the services must be compelling and must be easy to use he says.

There must also be attractive pricing models and a rich multi-media experience. Propelling this growth will be MMS and the JAVA object downloading. One of the reasons that GPRS hasnt taken off yet is that it hasnt had to applications to show off its capabilities. By August these applications will be available.

Nokia Networks president Sari Baldauf commented that the mobile services market is in transition at the moment.

Although the future is more complicated than before it brings greater benefits. She says:

It will be key enabling technologies that will drive future growth. We will see the mobile take the role of the centrepiece for personal content with calendar diary and address book all present. It will also interact with other services such as television and music systems to create added value while it will utilise PC and fixed line internet for complimentary tasks.

But within all this Ala-Pietila points out that three things must be in order to continue this growth: the end user acceptance a financially stable business model and technology.

In the past we only concentrated on technology. The entire industry was guilty of this.

Now there is the technology Ala-Pietila believes that there still needs to be investment in the industry in order to reap the rewards of MMS. Once the network and penetration starts there will be explosive growth. Unlike SMS where new behaviour and a new business model had to be created the business model is already there for MMS.

The success of MMS will then drive the penetration of 2.5G terminals which will prepare the way for 3G.

Heikki Norta vice president sales Europe and Africa says that these changes will bring a wealth of opportunities for the High Street dealer. But dealers have to be aware of these changes: There is fantastic opportunity for the high street retailer. But he must be aware of all the products out there. This year we have brought out a record number of terminals.

This is going to increase of the next couple of years as more and more technology. The dealer has to be ready for that. He needs to have the knowledge at his fingertips.

According to Norta Nokia is placing great emphasis on the training that will go along with its new products: It is vital that the dealers are aware of what the terminals can do and having training schemes in place is one way of ensuring this.

In addition to a greater proliferation of terminals Norta says that there will be an increase in accessories. As the handset market grows this will drive the number of peripherals.