Unemployed Shantel Pilgrim (19) had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to stealing a phone case and cover worth 34.98 from The Link last November. Her friend sales assistant Patrician Korneh (21) admitted dishonestly handling the cover.

They also admitted stealing a 19.99 scarf from JD Sports in Kensington High Street.

E-pay is a new venture set up by Banner Telecoms John Gardiner to provide electronic distribution of pre-pay vouchers (see story P16 ).

Since the sale of MPC to Vodafone Connect two years ago Althasen has continued to run the franchise element of the business from MPCs head office in Southend.

John Gardiner and I have known each other for many years and both of us have similar ideas concerning the future of the pre-pay market said Althasen.

The market is ready for our e-pay solution and we have laid down plans to develop the business in the UK and then overseas.

Our solution solves most of the current distribution theft and fraud problems currently experienced in the industry.

The potential is tremendous he added.

It now calls itself ServiceXpress and aims to process repairs within 24 hours.

ServiceXpress is the perfect name for our business since it communicates our core service messages as well as the ability to carry out repairs within 24 hours. The name is also more user friendly which is critical to our long-term strategy of promoting our services to the wider telecoms industry said ServiceXpress general manager Joel Gomm.

There is a sizeable market among the UKs 14.5 million mobile owners. We will be working with Kondor and Pama to establish nation-wide distribution of our headsets to meet demand said Plantronics retail sales manager Chris Wall.

Pay & Go is a mass-market package for regular users who will be able to make free calls to a single landline number at any time.

Business Pay & Go is designed for the small business market.

BTCellnet has signed more than a million pre-pay customers in a year. It expects to reach two million customers soon.

Sainsburys will be selling the Maxon MN1 package at 69.99 from free-standing display racks as well as 5 and 10 top-up cards.

This brings to 2000 the number of supermarkets now selling Vodafone Pay As You Talk which is also sold by Tesco Somerfield and Spar.

Supermarkets account for nearly 10 per cent of pre-pay sales in the UK. Vodafone reckons this will increase over the next year to 20 per cent of the total market for pre-pay phones and top-up vouchers.

Sainsburys Savacentre was the first multiple retailer to launch digital Pay As You Talk phones and we are delighted to build on this success with the national roll-out to 400 Sainsburys stores nation-wide said Vodafone Connect managing director David Jones.

The attraction and convenience of buying phones from supermarkets has been clearly reflected in our sales with around 50 per cent of Vodafones customers on Pay As You Talk being women Jones added.

The three-year deal with Vodafone Corporate involves the supply of 3500 Nokia 2110 handsets and Vodafone Expressway a server solution that delivers messages from a PC to a phone regardless of which network the phones are connected to. Whitbread owns the David Lloyd Leisure health and fitness clubs the Mariott hotel chain Beefeater and Travel Inns.

Whitbread will use SMS to send messages to technicians on the road instructing them where their next job is. Technicians send a message back to base when the job is completed and move on to the next call.

The radios are being sold in retail outlets such as The Link for 99 (one handset) and 179 (two handsets). No further licence fee or airtime costs are involved.

Motorola says the radios which are powered by three AA batteries have a range of up to two miles and can operate in temperatures from -20°C to 55°C.

Users can choose from up to 304 combinations of frequencies based on eight voice channels each with 38 privacy codes.

The TalkAbout product will be promoted at the Prutour cycling tour which covers more than 350 cities and towns in the UK over a route of 732 miles.

Motorola has signed a six-figure sponsorship deal with the Linda McCartney Pro Cycle Team which is competing in the Prutour event. The team will use the TalkAbout system.

The Pro Cycle Team will race against 17 international and national Olympic teams over the seven-day period of the event.

Ericsson runs 25000 servers across 130 countries running business-critical applications such as Computer Aided Design software for the design of all its products.

ICL will carry out an electronic audit of the 25000 servers followed by checks against a Year 2000 compliance database.

The six-week pilot programme at the end of 1998 was very successful. Subsequently ICL has been able to plough through a significant volume of work at a far quicker rate than we anticipated said Ericsson business consulting strategic development manager Lars Svensson.

As a result we expect our Year 2000 compliancy programme to be completed by the summer.

A class action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana on behalf of investors who bought Brightpoint shares between October 2 1998 and March 10 1999.

The Complaint charges that Brightpoint directors violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10-b (5). The action arises from share losses due to it is alleged a result of a scheme and common course of conduct by defendants which operated as a fraud and deceit on the Class during the Class Period.

The class action lawsuit which requires at least two complainants accuses Brightpoint officers of making false statements and/or omissions concerning the present and future financial condition and business prospects of the Company as well as the financial benefits that would enure to Brightpoint and its shareholders.

A Brightpoint statement said:

The Company believes that the allegations of wrongdoing as alleged in the complaint are without merit and intends to vigorously defend the claims brought against it.

Brightpoint notes that a variety of factors could cause the companys actual results to differ from the reported results expressed in forward-looking statements.