BTCellnet will be providing 8000 of the new Siemens C35 WAP-enabled mobile telephones to approved heating engineers. Following the launch in September the new service will initially be used by 8000 installers of Caradon Ideal Boilers. There are plans to further extend the service in the coming months by making it available to an increasing number of heating engineers. Plumbers and heating engineers will also be notified of new job opportunities via their WAP phones.

Vodafone was not found to be cross subsidising its service providers.

BTCellnet said the seven-year-old formula used by Oftel was an anachronism that has passed its sell-by date as a method of measurement.

A network spokesperson said:

Oftel has also decided to apply it using only one quarters market data wholly unreasonable in the highly competitive and changeable mobile phone market. BT Cellnet firmly believes that it does not unfairly cross subsidise its service provision activities said the network.

The major reason for imbalance in the mobile phone service provision market is due to regulatory decisions made by Oftel which permit Orange and One-2-One greater freedom and flexibility in promoting their own service provision

Until this imbalance is addressed BT Cellnet considers it is unreasonable for it to be subject to additional complex and obscure monitoring and enforcement procedures.

Orange and One-2-One have been acquired by substantial overseas networks There is no conceivable reason why these operators should need more favourable regulatory treatment than BT Cellnet the BTCellnet spoeksman said.

Oftel said BT Cellnets service providers are not covering their costs on services supplied to customers and would have been making a loss without subsidy from BT Cellnet.

Oftel director genreal David Edmonds said:

If BT Cellnet charge service providers too much for wholesale airtime customers will face an unbalanced choice when shopping around for a good deal

Oftels review of the mobile market in 1999 found that competition was increasing. BT Cellnet should take action to ensure that competition continues to develop. Lowering their wholesale price would be a very effective way of doing this.

Mobile advertising enabler Spotcast Communications and network SingTel Mobile have launched the service whereby customers can access information on a wide range of topics including music sports fashion the hottest entertainment news and even check out their daily horoscope.

Spotcast AdSpot systems are already in operation with Hong Kongs Peoples Phone and SmarTone mobile networks.

These give advertisers a way to precision target mobile users based on their personal preferences location and demographic information.

The first group of advertisers who have signed up to advertise on SingTel Mobiles 1911-FreeCall includes Motorola and Twentieth Century Fox Film.

SingTel Mobile CEO Lucas Chow said:

We are bombarded with thousands of advertisements every day. 1911-FreeCall allows advertisers to reach their target audience efficiently while at the same time customers will appreciate the information on services they are interested in.

Washington DC company Spotcast Communications developed an advertising-sponsored mobile phone service technology that allows advertisers to precision target advertising based on a callers mobile location demographic profile lifestyle interests and time of call.

SingTel Mobile has more than one million customers on its GSM networks. It was the first operator to introduce WAP in Singapore.

But the distributors turnover dipped by 13.5 million to 230 million compared with a year ago mainly due to a reduction in exports and tighter targeting of network customers.

The company says its non-core businesses such as Global Telematics e-Vita and ET Voice are not expected to contribute towards profits for another year.

Start-up losses from these businesses as well as the costs of integration of Banner Telecom are expected to have a significant impact on the results for the year.

Eazypay the electronic pre-pay solution branded e-Vita recorded a start-up loss of 500000. while the joint venture Global Telematics meant 1.87m had to be taken off European Telecoms profits.

Net group borrowings amounted to 9.2m.

The UK sales distribution divisions gross profit rose to 11 million up from 4.6 million last year.

Export turnover fell by 63.4m to 80.9m (1999: 144.3m) and gross profit fell to 6.2m (1999: 8.5m). But gross profit percentage improved by a third reflecting the move from the lower margin export trading.

Turnover at European Telecoms accessory division TAG increased by 53 per cent from 6.2m.

TAG recently won a three-year contract to supply Virgin Mobile. (see Mobile News June 26).

Turnover on the Service Express repair business was up 47 per cent to 963000.

Our strategy of rapid organic growth has not been without itsassociated costs. The Board of European Telecom however firmly believe that during the next two years the substantial investments will unlock for our shareholders the substantial value creation of these new businesses which is not fully recognised in the European Telecom share price today said European Telecom chairman Warren Hardy.

Sessami has built a network of contributors who submit details of events that are added to Whats Groovy!

The service can pick up on spontaneous activities and surprise shows. A Tell A friend! service lets users create their own community based on their phone mobile directory. Once an event is selected Tell A Friend! sends an invitation at the touch of a key which appears on the screen of as many invitees phones as the user chooses.

The sender needs a WAP phone but any phone and network can receive an invite.

Whats Groovy! offers services for the London area and has already been accessed by users in France Germany Spain and Italy.

From July local services will be offered in Glasgow Edinburgh and Manchester. Sessami has also begun its European expansion.

Also new is a new-look home page to make site navigation easier for its customers. For the first time ever from a mobile phone customers will be able to track DHL parcel deliveries. Under the Business section on vodafone.net WAP users can select the DHL parcel tracker site enter the airway bill number of the parcel and receive details of exactly where their parcel is.

Also in addition to AA traffic information about specific roads motorways or towns users can now receive route plans from the AA direct onto their WAP handsets.

Business users can get international or domestic flight information from Lastminute.com and Thomas Cook together with international weather forecasts from the Meteorological Office or Thomas Cook.

These additional services are just part of a programme of enhancements planned for the forthcoming months. Vodafone commercial director Paul Donovan said.

Nokia will from next year install RealNetworks RealPlayer technology in Nokias EPOC based communicators and smart phones.

Customers with these devices will be able to hear and see RealAudio and RealVideo internet content available on websites worldwide.

Streaming media introduces a new dimension to the mobile phone user experience said Anssi Vanjoki executive vice president Nokia Mobile Phones.

Through our collaboration with RealNetworks we are bringing the best technology for internet media delivery to the highest quality mobile internet devices for the benefit of our customers. We are pleased to be working together with RealNetworks to enable access to the mass of content available in RealNetworks formats.

Said Rob Glase RealNetworks CEO: Mobile devices will play a paramount role in the future of computing and information exchange our work with Nokia is focused on bringing streaming audio and video to the millions of mobile device users worldwide.

RealNetworks develops and markets software products and services designed to enable users of personal computers and other consumer electronic devices to send and receive audio video and other multimedia services using the web.

Consumers can access and experience audio/video programming and download RealNetworks consumer software on the internet at http://www.real.com.

The sellers claim:

You can make free calls from your GSM phone and never need to recharge it again just use the kit and its upgradable software which contains all the latest security bypass codes.

Create FREE CALL cards for other people too it takes about 10 minutes. You can timebomb your Freecall Simcards to make them last only a day or a week or a month you choose.  That way your clients need to come back and get their cards re-authorised by YOU after a certain period of time. More money for you.

Our Kit uses a method known as Algorithm Triangulation. Although the call is connected the security feature that instructs the GSM provider to deduct call time from your account is scrambled.

A BTCellnet spokesperson told Mobile News:

It is a site that the networks are aware of. On behalf of the network security teams one of the networks applied to purchase the software advertised to see what if anything was sent.

This was done over a month ago. As of last week they had still not received anything.

There is nothing to suggest there is a product that could compromise GSM security in this way.

It is interesting that nothing has yet been received with payment having already been made.

The site requests payment by bank wire transfer and does not accept credit card orders outside the USA.

By the end of the year text messaging will have reached 750 million. It is important to recognise the variety of applications not just the volume as messaging moves from a verbal to a textual world said MDA chairman Mike Short.

Director Mahmood Khan said: The World of Accessories brand is confusing to customers of a group that provides mobile services.

The World of Accessories name continues for the companys accessories. Mobile Phone House has stores in Clapham Tooting Streatham Camberwell and Maidstone.