ITS offers a flat rate irrespective of which European country is called when the call is made and whether it is to a mobile or landline.

ITS has a standard monthly subscription fee of 2.99 but is available at no extra cost to Business Max GroupWorker Groupworker Max and Mobile Extension customers.

Business First customers already receive ITS rates on all calls made from the UK as part of their calling plan.

Akpabio (25) faces a total of 51 charges of theft and false accounting. He is accused of stealing a total of 2740 in sums of between 50 and 150 during a three-month period between December 9 last year and March 10 this year at the Orange Shop in Oxford Street in Londons West End.

He is also charged on numerous accounts of falsifying receipts by pretending they had been signed by customers.

Vodafone came first in six out of the nine UK regions with leads of nearly two per cent in Scotland and the South.

Vodafone also came top in Oftels quarterly residential survey with 98 per cent of the networks mobile customers surveyed saying they were satisfied with the overall service provided by the company.

Arthur D Little consultant Thomas Strohmaier said worry about debt burdens and pressure from investors were forcing operators into making decisions on network sharing without considering the strategy behind them.

Sharing networks will reduce operators costs at a time when their return on investment is under scrutiny he told the Mobile Infrastructure Sharing Conference last week.

Greenfield operators with no experience in mobile operations are most at risk of making the wrong choice while trying to earn back their licence investment.

It means operators more and more lose control of their network making future changes harder to implement he added.

Anglo conducted an independent survey into customer satisfaction levels across 200 UK businesses ranging from small and medium enterprises to large corporates.

The survey interviewed telecoms managers and senior executives in charge of buying maintaining and running a companys mobile phones.

The findings showed that more than 50 per cent of small enterprises expressed dissatisfaction with their current arrangements.

The survey indicated that most telecoms providers are failing to get the basics right with more than 50 per cent of respondents saying they had difficulty getting hold of a customer service advisor. Once they had managed to make contact with a customer service advisor 55 per cent of those interviewed said they experienced further delays in getting the problem solved.

The most common complaint was failure to deliver an accurate bill. Around 75 per cent of the sample said they were always told of price increases but less than half were told about ways they could cut their telecoms costs and make more efficient use of their mobile.

Only a third of those interviewed placed any importance on new technologies such as 3G and Bluetooth.

Service providers may claim they work in partnership with customers but our findings show that many want to have their cake and eat it said Anglo managing director Mark Weir.

Last month all four network operators introduced an automated number porting system which cut transfer time from 25 days to seven days or less.

Apart from a recent Oftel press release the industry has done next to nothing to publicise a service which could potentially save the SME market millions of pounds a year said Alternative Networks marketing director and co-founder Chris Wilson.

This new service has proven to be popular with our own customers. However market awareness as a whole remains very low.

Mobile public telecommunication operators licences require them to provide mobile portability to other operators on a reciprocal basis.

This regulatory obligation came into force on January 1 1999. UK customers were the first in the world to be able to do this. Since then nearly a million mobile numbers have been ported.

Lets Talk Phones managing director Don Maher was presented with a specially commissioned bronze sculpture plus 2500 in cash by celebrity female impersonator Lily Savage at the awards bash held at Dublins Four Seasons Hotel.

The judging panel agreed that Lets Talk Phones excelled in the areas of product range value-added services to customers staff training aftersales support and training community services and point-of-sale.

The winners in the other nine categories were: Kerry Phone Centres Killarney Co. Kerry (Business-to-Business Achievement) The Carphone Warehouse (Innovative Use of Technology) Talk To Me Mobile Phones (Excellence in Customer Service) Talking Point Communications Nenagh Co. Tipperary (Best Shop Front – small retailer) Lets Talk Phones (Best Shop Front – large retailer) Nokia 6210m (Best Handset) Kerry Phone Centres (Best Local Marketing/Ad Campaign) Person 2 Person (Best National Marketing/Advertising Campaign) Maureen OFlaherty Person 2 Person Glasnevin Dublin and Joseph Cullen Phone Stores Wexford (Best Salespersons).

The phone was launched at Nokias International Mobile Internet Conference held last week at the Catalonia Palace of Congresses in Barcelona (see full report next issue).

The 7650 includes a photo album for storing pictures GPRS an advanced user interface joystick navigation and a colour display that covers most of the phones top surface.

The keypad stored underneath ejects at the push of a button.

Bluetooth and Infrared are supported allowing connectivity to PCs and other terminals.

There is 4Mb of integrated user memory for user-downloaded applications messages and phonebook entries and stored images. The 7650 supports GPRS and HSCSD with data speeds of up to 43.2Kb/s (HSCSD) and 40.2Kb/s (GPRS) depending on the network configuration. The unit weighs 154g and measures 114x56x26 mm. The standard Li-Ion battery gives four hours of talk time and standby time of up to 10 days.

Also launched was the Nokia 5210 and 6510. The 5210 adds stopwatch countdown timer and thermometer to the usual features.

This is up 55 million on Novembers figure representing an 18 per cent growth for the last quarter of 2002 and showing that many mobile customers are now making daily use of WAP.

The MDA forecasts that annual WAP page impressions will reach eight billion in 2003.

Student Ashley Theophane is accused of the snatch theft of the phone from a man in Westbourne Road Paddington West London on September 27.

He has elected for jury trial.