Hamse Dahir (20) of Harrow Road Kensal Green West London pleaded guilty at Horseferry Road Court to attempting to dishonestly obtain a Nokia by deception from The Links Baker Street store on September 11 this year.

He was remanded on bail until October 29 for pre-sentence reports. Magistrates warned him that all options of punishment including imprisonment will be considered.

Nokias 7210 and 6610 handsets had been refused accreditation by the network after failing to meet O2s standards despite being passed fit for sale by Vodafone and Orange (Mobile News November 25).

Now after carrying out the relevant software changes the handsets are deemed to be up to scratch and available for sale.

We have carried out the work that O2 requested and we are shipping the updates across this week said Nokia spokesman Ray Haddow.

Haddow said part of the problem related to an mmO2 product called Homezone which was unique to German users. An O2 spokesman said the problem was to do with dropped calls.

It will be first available to Orange customers. The myG-5 has a console-type cross-shaped keypad and an 101×80 pixel colour screen.

It supports iMelody 1.2 Midi and Wav audio formats has musical hi-fi ringtones and built-in hands-free. IN-FUSIOs downloadable games engine – ExEn provides a one-click games catalogue feature. The phone has been fully optimised for mobile games written in Java.

It is shipped with the game Wallbreaker already embedded. A further nine colour games will be available for download including the first 3D game for mobile phones – Mission 3D. Once games have been downloaded they are available for playing off-line.

A player management platform will enable Orange to monitor game activity manage competitions integrate billing and alert players of new games and updated features.

But O2 claimed the handset suffers from a software fault and says it is waiting for Nokia to fix the problem before resuming testing.

Nokia spokesman Ray Haddow insisted the failing wasnt a serious problem and that the 7210 has been passed by other networks.

Every product that comes on to the market is tested by networks on an individual basis he said. Different operators have different parameters because of the different servers they use and the different structure of their networks.

He conceded: It is true that there is a problem with the 7210 and O2 network but it isnt an insurmountable one. The implementation of software during the approval process can be difficult but it is nothing to be worried about. He went on to say: There will be updated software in later models but this is natural.

The product was launched in Vodafone retail outlets last Friday and the network said it experienced no problems during testing and was happy to launch the product.

The handset has been available at The Link on the Vodafone network for the past two weeks.

The Link managing director Nick Wood said that the chain had experienced no problems running the product on Vodafone and would not consider removing the handset from its shelves.

We take the view that if Vodafone has passed it we are happy for it to go out he said.

Of course we will not release the product on O2 until the network certifies it. O2 said it was not appropriate to comment on the nature of the problem while it was being fixed.

The number of companies exhibiting this year was around 1000 down from 1685 last year and 2337 in 2000. This years show was attended by 125000 people.

Nokia showed its first EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) handset the Nokia 6200 claimed to support data speeds of up to 118000 bps. The 2G/3G tri-band handset has an XHTML Web browser and MMS and works at 900 1800 and 1900 GSM frequencies. Nokia also launched its 6340i which operates on the US TDMA AMPS and GSM systems. A camera phone the 7250 is described as the companys second imaging phone for the US market.

Nokia also came up with an interesting GPS-enabled handset the 3585i which is designed for both analogue and digital (GSM 1900) networks in North America.

This colour CDMA handset has a series of exchangeable covers with embedded electro-luminescent graphics that pulse in time with the ringer. It also features integral support for Global Positioning System (GPS) location-based services.

Several companies launched 802.11g-standard wireless devices at Comdex Fall. While 802.11b supports wireless data speeds of up to 11 Mbps 802.11g pushes the speed to 54 Mbps as well as adding a more robust system to cope with interference.

The WiFi Alliance (a consortium of firms that support 802.11) backed this claim of a five-fold speed hike and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that the software giant was fully committed to 802.11 (WiFi) technology.

On the Bluetooth front Denmarks Nextlink showed a digital version of its popular Bluespoon headset with 10 hours active use battery life. Pricing will probably be around 200 when the unit becomes available early next year.

NatSemi showed a 710 gram super PDA called the Geode Extended Office (GXO) the same size as a framed 5×7 inch photograph. It is 0.9 inches thick and supports both Bluetooth and 802.11b W-LAN technology. It has a bright six-inch TFT display with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels – five times the resolution seen on a Pocket PC.

Other features include an onboard 10Gb hard drive and a colour camera.

Nokia along with Matsushita (Panasonic) Microsoft Motorola SonyEricsson and Openwave said they had cracked the problem of cross-model MMS.

The companies were busy showing off what they called Multi-vendor MMS Interoperability at the show even though the problem of cross-network MMS has yet to be solved.

Matsushita (Panasonic) announced it is now working with Nokia on exchanging MMS messages between both companies handsets as well as PDAs and multimedia terminals.

But this was not due to Breslin said Mainline managing director Andrew Boden.

Breslins predecessor Sara Stilliard will take over as interim sales and marketing director. Stilliard held the top marketing job before Breslin joined. Boden said that she was the architect of Blueprint.

Chris Breslin asked to leave because he wasnt producing results. Things didnt work out as we would have liked. He didnt get what he wanted out of the role and we didnt get a return on our investment said Boden.

Breslin was a former head of global marketing for Shell Gas.

And T-Mobile claims that the 11.7 million customers now using its network mean it is now the UKs number three – after O2 announced that the addition of 278000 subscribers had increased its total to 11.4 million 300000 short of T-Mobiles.

However the T-Mobile figure includes more than two million Virgin customers. This reduces the number of direct T-Mobile subscribers to around 9.7 million meaning it effectively remains in fourth position behind O2.

However T-Mobile spokesman Patrick Barrow insisted that T-Mobile was now in third place and was aiming to catch and overtake Vodafone and Orange in its bid to become the leading network.

Barrow told Mobile News:

We are now number three in the UK. We are the fastest-growing network in customer numbers and revenue in the UK and we aim to maintain growth by continuing to launch new and competitive offerings. The growth has been partly due to the rebranding and because we have an offering that people in the market want.

There is at last an upturn in the growth of mobile phone subscribers according to the latest subscriber figures released by O2 Vodafone and T-Mobile.

The last quarter saw all four networks and Virgin add an extra 1.4 million subscribers compared with 1.1 million in Q2 and one million in the same quarter last year.

However the figure is well shy of the 3.7 million customers connected in Q3 2000.

The biggest-ever quarterly increase was in Q4 2000 when the networks added 5.7 million net new connections – the majority being pre-pay phones.

This means more than 3.7 million net new connections have been added since the start of the year. There are now more than 48 million mobile phone subscribers in the UK roughly equivalent to 80 per cent market penetration. The figures show that at least 68 per cent of all mobile subscribers use pre-pay rather than post-pay services.

Virgin outstripped Vodafone in the last quarter by adding 232000 subscribers to reach more than two million customers.

Orange retained its position as the network with most customers adding 258000 subscribers to take its total to more than 13 million.

The gap between Orange and Vodafone widened because Vodafone only managed to add 212000 customers over the quarter. Vodafone now has 12 million active customers in the UK. The company says its registered customer base has dropped because it has followed a policy of disconnecting inactive customers. Nevertheless Vodafones active customer base increased because the number of inactive customers on its network fell by four percent.

The networks have also been highlighting a shift away from pre-pay to contract.

O2 claims more than 62 per cent of its new connections were post-pay.

However Vodafone is still the network with the least pre-pay customers according to the figures. Vodafone claims 42.5 per cent of its customers are post-pay compared with 33.4 per cent on O2 and 31.7 per cent on Orange.

Vodafone also claims its customers generate higher revenue per user at 282 per subscriber per year compared with Orange ( 258) O2 ( 238) and T-Mobile ( 214).

O2 claims an increase in SMS usage was responsible for increasing revenue from non-voice services to 15.3 per cent. Orange and Vodafone say data accounted for 14.2 and 11.8 per cent of revenues respectively.

The device weighs 28 grams and is smaller than a disposable camera. It conains two SIM card slots a screen and keypad.

When two SIM cards are inserted the user enters the relevant PIN number to authorise the transfer of data which takes place in a few seconds.

SchlumbergerSema reckons the device could be a key tool in encouraging users to upgrade to enhanced SIM cards allowing operators to sell more revenue-generating services.

For operators in todays competitive market the key to building customer satisfaction and attracting competitors subscribers lies in their capacity to offer innovative and differentiated services. The SIM2SIM device is a simple but powerful tool that enables the subscriber to transfer personal personal data from one card to another in a fast easy and secure way said SchlumbergerSema VP Xavier Chanay.

His best friend who was his accomplice was given a three-month community punishment order after admitting threatening behaviour.

At the time of the offence a member of the public intervened and apprehended one of the attackers who then named his friend.

The operation was set up in 2000 and was supposed to provide telecom services to 3. But despite an investment of around 450 million to date the project has become loss making losing 56 million this year alone. Transco will pay Hutchison 25 million to free 186K from its contract.

186Ks assets include a fibre-optic network of 1800 km linking 20 major towns and cities. The network is expected to be completed by the end of the year.