Warehouse gets into bed with womens mags

The package features the Nokia 3210 connection to Vodafone and a range of accessories plus a 12-month subscription to She Cosmopolitan or one of the other female titles within the Nat Mags range.

It is the first time that GMTV has endorsed a mobile phone commercial.

Last week a 60-second ad was aired once a day after 8am. This week there will be four 60-second and three 20-second ads also aired after 8am.

The Carphone Warehouse marketing head Jonathan Hook said:

We are always looking at innovative advertising and promotional ideas which are relevant to our customers and offer real added value. This is a fantastic promotion which provides customers with a great value package as well as free subscription to their favourite magazine.

This is the first time National Magazines has been involved in such a promotion. Martin Granby director of consumer sales and marketing said:

It is an excellent opportunity for National Magazines. The commercial will give us exposure to a huge percentage of our core target audience as will The Carphone Warehouses call centre promotion.

Fone Range licensing subsidiary lands rights to Warner Bros cartoon characters

Its task is to take the Fone Range group into the area of character licensing.

Warner Bros is the first licensor. It means Fone Range Partnerships will be able to use characters such as Bugs Bunny Scooby-Doo and Batman as well as characters from Cartoon Network.

The rapid growth in the accessories market is being driven by younger people and the use of popular television and film characters provides a perfect fit to their demand for personalisation and differentiation said Brooks.

Warner Bros characters have universal appeal and timelessness which provides the ideal platform for our range of mobile phone accessories said Brooks.

Fone Range products featuring the Warner Bros characters will be available from next month.

Energis to be Orange virtual network

Orange gets a new revenue stream from Energis Mobile customers as well as reciprocal access to a number of Energis services. Energis Mobile will focus on the business market and will be launched in the autumn.

Energis will be responsible for sales and marketing while the Orange Consulting Group will provide the network customer services technical support systems and billing. Energis Mobile will market GSM voice data and internet services. GPRS and third generation capabilities will be offered as they come on stream.

Hans Snook Chief Executive of Orange said:

This is the first agreement of its kind on the DN1800 service. For the first time Orange has the opportunity to add a fixed-line dimension to its wirefree services. The agreement is a win-win situation for both Orange and Energis. Energis will be able to offer mobile business communications solutions to its business customers under its own brand and Orange will gain access to important incremental revenue from this valuable corporate segment.

Energis a FTSE 100 business telecommunications and internet company was founded in 1993 and is focused on the business marketplace.

Major national clients include the BBC Boots Freeserve Thomas Cook Sainsbury and Whitbread. The company has over 6800 kilometres of fibre optic cable installed throughout England and Wales.

Latest scores on mobiles for free

The free service gives kick-off notification goal flashes and full-time goal notification.

Further developments are to send the goal scorers name team line-ups league position club news and transfer news.

Similar scoring sites are promised for Formula One Cricket Rugby and Horse Racing.

Users register for the service through the web site www.giveus thescore.com.

MViva to host Go m-ad campaign

When users log on to the travel channel of mViva a Go M-ad will appear on their WAP phone display to promote specific Go routes and also give people the option to receive text messages to sign up to Gos e-mail service which gives details of special offers and to actually book flights.

Go will be using this campaign to promote routes to Madrid Munich Lyon Alicante Faro Milan Ibiza Prague Reykjavik and new destinations of Glasgow and Tenerife. mViva sales director Richard Winchurch-Beale said: Were thrilled to be the first portal to launch interactive ads. It adds relevant and useful information for customers using our travel channel.

Go has already carried out a text message campaign for Ibiza and are advertising on NTLs web site.

Four live in car in Siemens publicity stunt

Each volunteer was allowed 30 minutes per 24 hours outside the car to go to the toilet stretch their limbs and get some fresh air. All foods had to be bought using their phones and the 50 in cash they were each given.

Explained Siemens mobile phones marketing manager Sue Rowe: This is an experiment albeit an extreme one in what WAP can actually do. Hopefully by the end of the week well know a lot more about what WAPs limits are and what WAP can offer.

Dealer fights with Vodafone over IMEI bar

They said there was no point in them doing so as it was easy for anyone to change the IMEI number Meyer told Mobile News.

The police are reluctant to investigate one stolen phone because the Data Protection Act means it is hard for them to get details of the customer he said.

In my opinion Vodafone is shirking its responsibilities to dealers like us who are held responsible for dealing in stolen phones. The FCSs own rule is the dealer shall not hold or connect any equipment that is stolen said Meyer.

The FCS are powerless to act against Vodafone because Vodafone pay their wages. Ive reported this phone as stolen to the network. Why havent Vodafone turned it off? The law of the land says it is stolen. They have it connected to their network. They should be turning it off their network Meyer complained.

If we connect a stolen phone we get severely punished yet no-one seems to enforce Vodafone to stand by their own rules. The prime reason for setting up the FCS Crime Prevention Scheme was to prevent connection of stolen phones. Vodafone just dont seem to care. Surely they should just be barring the phone completely?

Vodafone confirmed that it it did bar SIM cards and mobile numbers from stolen phones but not the phones IMEI number.

The reason for this is that barring the IMEI numbers doesnt guarantee the integrity of the number said Vodafone spokesperson Corinne Norris.

It doesnt matter what phone it is IMEIs can be changed. So barring the IMEI from the network would be ineffective.

However a user cannot access the network without a valid subscription.

So a refusal to bar an IMEI number is not the same as refusing to disconnect a phone since there isnt a connection involved.

In an instance where a phone has been stolen what we advise people to do is report it to the police. We do of course provide police with any support or assistance they need in their investigations.

Handset manufacturers have agreed that with the next software release new phones will have IMEI numbers that cannot be changed. Once that has been introduced we shall review our position on barring and blacklisting IMEI numbers because their integrity will then be guaranteed said Norris.

BTCellnet unveils its GPRS service June 26

BTCellnet will also be launching the first GPRS-based application which will enable mobile access to a corporate network using a portable computer and a mobile phone.

The launch of GPRS is the first stage of the companys roll-out of the new network and will be followed by the launch of services for other market sectors in the coming months.

GPRS will deliver internet applications to mobile devices up to five to ten times faster than currently possible.

Initially aimed at the business community GPRS will support WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) HTML and Microsoft Office. Consumer applications will be rolled-out by the end of 2000.

BTCellnets GPRS core network system is being implemented by Motorola which has supplied the BTCellnet mobile network since 1985.

BTCellnet is also launching the first GPRS application. Aimed at the corporate market the new applications will allow corporate organisations to give their staff mobile always on access to services on a Corporate Intranet including e-mail and schedule applications using a portable computer working with a mobile phone.

Until now these types of services have been delivered via a fixed connection and now GPRS makes it possible to connect to services on the corporate LAN whilst on the move or away from a fixed line.

Peter Richardson sales and marketing director of BTCellnet commented:

The initial corporate customers will be using a single promotional tariff rate. Later BTCellnet will introduce tariffs to meet varying business and consumer needs.

GPRS has been developed alongside BTCellnets existing digital network. It uses the existing radio base stations linked to a new network based on packet technology.

On existing circuit switched networks the user dials the number and the network connects the call. With packet technology the user will log into a data network and then send and receive data as and when required throughout the day.

The GPRS network is only utilised when data is being transmitted but the user retains a virtual connection throughout the day. The user can be always connected.

Location directions to WAP handsets on offer

The service enables stores restaurants hotels and estate agents to send location details to WAP handsets.

Users select a relevant WAP site and enter the postcode of the area in which they wish to search for a list of the nearest branches. A particular branch can be selected with directions on how to reach it and information on opening hours. The service means that outlets can be found quickly and easily while consumers are on the move.

Store Finder on WAP is a natural extension of our web-based Store Finder service commented Multimap.coms managing director Sean Phelan.

The service increases customer retention on the site and is fully customisable. Companies can have their own logo and branding displayed.

Its also easy to implement so businesses dont need to undertake any WAP development themselves.

Genie tie-in for virtual WAP radio station

Users will be able to receive personalised entertainment information and audio over their WAP phones. XY Network will offer WAP users a text-based service although full audio content is available via Genies Entertainment zone or directly via www.xynetwork.com. Full service this summer will offer WAP users full high quality audio content.

Visual content has been configured to fit the screen on a mobile handset and audio content varies in format from easy-to-manage sound bites to full-length tunes book readings or advice.

The service will include a daily soap opera sports news and business channels.

Genie Internet was launched by BTCellnet in March 1999 and now has 750000 registered users.

Somethin Else produces programming for every BBC radio network the countrys ILR stations British Airways in-flight audio plus television for BBC1 and Channel 4.

Paul Bennun Somethin Elses director of Interactive Broadcasting said Weve been waiting for the chance to bring our own vision of interactive radio alive for the past five years. Now the technology is here.