The subscriber initiates Voice

Activated Dialling by calling via a 0800 access number. Once connected the user is prompted to speak a name and location from their on-line address book

The on-line service features real-time itemised billing and an address book with a capacity for 3000 contact numbers.

The voice recognition and address book lookup is performed on DMLs network based dmGenX switch rather than the handset itself.

Standard tariff is 5p per minute currently encompassing some 750000000 people across 19 world destinations.

The service is available from any existing phone mobile or landline within the United Kingdom.

People remember names. Numbers just get in the way and I regard them as an endangered species. This is an evolutionary step towards user friendly communications says Robert Darwin managing director of Digital Mail.

I think that we can make using a mobile phone safer than listening to a tape when one is driving said Darwin

Digital Mail says it has has overcome the restrictions that have limited voice-dialling services in the past such as poor recognition technology and cumbersome dialling-list management.

Using state-of-the-art speech recognition technology we can offer recognition accuracy rates that often exceed manual dialling on a full-size keypad Darwin claimed.

The Vodafone-branded fixed line service is claimed to offer customers savings of up to 33 per cent on current BT prices and discounted fixed line calls to Vodafone mobiles from as little as 5.5p.

The Atlantic products will be branded Vodafone BusinessLine and Vodafone HomeLine and will be available for small to medium sized businesses and residential customers respectively.

An indirect access fixed phone service supplied by Atlantic-owned First Telecom has been available from Vodafone stores for over a year.

The Vodafone BusinessLine service complements Vodafones combined fixed and mobile service already available to corporate customers through its partnerships with Energis and Cable and Wireless Communications.

Vodafone HomeLine residential customers will get savings of 33 per cent on calls to Vodafone mobiles and savings of 25 per cent on local national and international calls.

The Vodafone fixed service is accessed by installing a small 4.99 dialler box at the phone socket. Eligible calls are automatically routed to the Vodafone fixed service.

Atlantic Telecom Group Plc is a European broadband integrated comms provider.

We have been offering combined mobile and fixed line services to our corporate customers for over three years and a fixed indirect access phone service has been available to customers through our retail stores for the last two years commented Vodafone commercial MD Paul Donovan.

Student users also get free text messaging until the end of January. After that they can continue to get one text media service free such as sports news gig guides etc.

Students have specific needs not provided for by the current range of mobile phone packages said Orange commercial director Richard Brennan.

Handsets available include the Bosch 210e Ericsson 2618e Siemens c35e Nokia 3110e Motorola v2288e and Motorola T2288e.

McCanns appointment wont affect existing local ad agencies working with individual Vodafone companies in each country.

After seeing a number of agencies we selected McCanns for the strength of its network and track record on campaigns of this type said Vodafones global branding director Thomas Geitner.

The agency will have an important role to play in establishing our future gobal brand enabling Vodafone to achieve its aim of becoming the worlds leading mobile multimedia company and ensuring the Group is in pole position when it launches third generation networks.

The GSM Association says that SMS demand is so great that its forecast of 10 billion messages a month by the end of the year will have been achived in September. The Association says 15 billion messages will be sent a month by the end of the year.

What was a cult following a couple of years ago is a mass-market phenomenon today said GSM

Association chairman Jim Healy.

There is huge demand boosted by a vast volume value and variety of services offered by GSM networks and internet applications services.

SMS initially took time to catch on and reach a critical mass in

Europe before exploding. We are seeing a replication of that trend across all markets now and are witnessing a subtle shift in the world of wireless comms from the verbal to the visual variety.

Rob Conway GSM Association CEO added:

The rise of SMS has been fuelled by many factors including the extraordinary growth of pre-pay services the development of WAP-based SMS messaging SMS roaming interconnection between operators and the sheer range and diversity of services now available to customers.

In France more than half a billion messages were reported as in Italy during August.

The Grinch stars Jim Carrey and is directed by Ron Howard. Its being hyped as the biggest film this side of Christmas.

One 2 One and The PocketPhone Shop have been given exclusive access to The Grinch and have put together a sales channel promotion to coincide with the films launch.

Branded Grinch postcard dispensers will be displayed at point-of-sale in over 300 cinemas nationwide offering a holiday competition to Los Angeles.

Entrants have to fill the entry form on the reverse of the card and then drop it into the nearest PocketPhone Shop.

Coupled with a branded entry box and considerable in-store branding in over 170 PocketPhone Shops nationwide is another holiday competition that is open to all purchasers of One 2 One phones until the end of December.

The promotion will be boosted with national newspaper competitions and online promotions. One 2 One recently promoted hit movies American Pie and Kevin & Perry Go Large.

Reverse charge technology over a mobile network eliminates the need for callers to key in personal details. They can use their phone bill as a method of payment.

WAP needs killer applications to really take off e-mail was the first now with this technology we have also opened it up to the world of m-commerce said MD Hugh Spear.

It is particularly suited to low-value or micro-transactions where there is consumer resistance to using credit cards.

Mobilebone.com is a WAP information and entertainment site which offers a range of services including sports results travel information quizzes jokes and hot gossip.

The most popular section which receives over 4000 hits a day allows visitors to download over 100 different ringtones for their mobile phone.

This was an increase of more than 513 per cent in one quarter. Registrations on the UK site increased by 38 per cent over the same period to more than 1.6 million.

This data demonstrates that mainstream consumer adoption of wireless information services is on the upswing said Genie MD Laurence Alexander.

BTCellnet says around a million of its customers have upgraded to to WAP-enabled handsets. Genie has recently announced a location based service.

Other plans include GPRS enhancements and a development of its m-commerce offering.

Genie currently has web and WAP portals in the UK the Netherlands and Italy with more than 2.6 million registrations in total.

Genie has also partnered with Yahoo! and Freeserve to enable their customers to access their e-mails via Genie.Genies other businesses include Qdodge.com a system to top-up pre-pay mobile phones via the web and ATM type machines.