Mobile News will not be published on Christmas Eve. Our next issue will be out on January 7 2002. We wish all our readers and advertisers a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

BTCellnet has joined with US data specialist Novatel Wireless to offer the 249 Merlin card.

It is initially being targeted at business customers who have the BTCellnet GPRS service and want secure access to their own intranet or corporate email.

A future version will allow internet access for Web based email or Web applications.

They were stolen from an air freight shipment in transit from its suppliers in Hong Kong last week. Police are carrying out enquiries as one of the units has been used on BTCellnets network in the Heathrow area.

BTCellnet is warning dealers and distributors not to purchase the units if they are offered for sale but to call its security team.

The development units are not yet configured to function on BTCellnets GPRS service and it is understood that the device software has not yet been tested. The XDA is a combined phone/PDA with full colour screen MP3 player and GPRS capabilities using Microsofts PocketPC 2002 operating system. The production version of the phone is not due for launch until next year.

The message was first sent at the 3GSM Congress in Cannes by Gerry McKenna CEO of Logica Mobile Networks to Johannesburg from the groups exhibition stand.

Logica in Johannesburg forwarded the message to its counterpart in Sao Paolo from where it travelled to San Francisco Sydney Australia and Hong Kong before arriving back in Cannes 197.53 seconds later.

At each stage of the journey the country sending the message on the next leg added its initials.

Intec will sell Fresh handsets for 14.99. Users pay for airtime by paying a fixed monthly amount by credit card or direct debit thus combining the advantages of pre-pay without being tied to a contract.

We can either pre-package with our current handset range or as a basic sell-on to dealers for bundling with a customers own choice of handset said Intec business development director Charlo Carabott.

Fresh will be making a big impact on the New Year market as subscribers seek greater control over airtime costs added Carabott.

It also puts Intec ahead of our competitors in the independent distribution sector and demonstrates our determination to offer dealers the ability to offer customers a keenly priced range of handsets and after-sales services while still achieving generous profit margins.

Key qualified as a chartered accountant with Arthur Young.

In 1987 he moved first to Grand Metropolitan Foods Europe and then on to Coca-Cola and Kingfisher in various financial management roles.

Key has worked for Vodafone UK for the past three years holding a number of financial director positions with the company.

Unemployed Stephane Menuier (28) of Blackhorse Road Walthamstow East London is charged with stealing the phone at the Maroush restaurant in Edgware Road Paddington on January 31.

As he was led away District Judge Rosamond Keating asked the interpreter what mobile phone was in French and was told portable.

The system is now also available in the UK with the Lotus Domino server as well as Microsoft Exchange platforms a move which at a stroke doubles its market.

Half of the corporate sector uses Lotus. Previously BlackBerry was only available to customers in the UK using MS Exchange. The new development now means it is available to almost all businesses.

BlackBerry operates over BTCellnets GPRS network forwarding emails directly to the users BlackBerry wireless handheld.

There is no need to log on or dial in as the device enables users to be always connected to their business email account. Users are able to securely receive read and respond to messages wherever they are.

BlackBerry is now the only end-to-end wireless email solution on the market to offer businesses the choice of Lotus Domino or MS

Exchange said Pete Richardson BTCellnet director of business markets.

Nearly twice as many businesses can now use BlackBerry as the productivity tool of choice for working on the move said Richardson.

BlackBerry was developed and manufactured by Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM) and was launched in the UK through BTCellnet last September.

BTCellnet says its research has shown that office workers spend on average 20 per cent of their working day dealing with email messages.

The NCC says the justifications of the four network operators for call termination charges are

irrelevant.

In giving evidence to the Competition Commission the NCC said real competitive pressures barely exist in charges for calls to mobile phones.

Consumers hold negligible market power because they have no real choice over the network they call. When they phone a mobile on a different network consumers are captive and must pay a call termination charge to the receiving network. There is little consumers can to do avoid these charges the NCC told the commission.

BTCellnet says this will enable it to offer its GPRS customers seamless access to the data services they use in the UK when travelling abroad with an always on connection that is high-speed and secure.

The Cable & Wireless GRX deal gives BTCellnet direct access to more than 15 GPRS operators. GRX was launched last May and Cable & Wireless says it has the potential to carry GPRS traffic to more than 70 countries.

It uses a dedicated global

Internet Protocol-based network to keep calls secure.