The new price plans are Firststep New Smartstep and Nextstep. Like the BTCellnet offering customers will automatically be connected to the new enhanced Smartstep plan but can switch to any other available price plan within 28 days at no charge.

After this initial period customers can migrate between pre-pay price plans for an administration charge of 7.50 unless they are moving to Nextstep where it will continue to be free.

The three price plans are aimed to appeal to weekend and evening users keen texters and talkers and heavy users.

Firststep has calls at 5p per minute for evening and weekend Vodafone-to-Vodafone calls rising to 10p per minute for national and local evening and weekend calls.

New Smartstep calls are 25p per minute for the first three minutes in a day. This drops to 5p per minute thereafter. Text messages cost 12p for the first three messages in a day and then 9p per message thereafter.

Nextstep is a flat rate designed for the high user costing 50p a day for 50p worth of calls and/or text. Local national and Vodafone-to-Vodafone calls cost 10p per minute and 10p per text message.

Handsets range from 79.99 to 199.99 and include models from Nokia Panasonic Sony and Motorola. All current top-up methods can be used by customers to credit their accounts. Existing allcalls customers may remain on the allcalls price plan or move to one of the new price plans.

The package will also include up to 5 of calling credit. This will be made up of 2.50 allocated to the handset and a further 2.50 on registration with the network.

The Big Four have set up a Mobile Games Interoperability Forum (MGI) to specify a global standard and to develop certification procedures to encourage a wide adoption of the standard. The MGI Forum will provide recommendations to standards bodies and to ensure that the specification meets the needs of games publishers and developers game platform vendors game service providers mobile network operators additional device and infrastructure vendors and service integrators. They are all encouraged to join the forum.

The company won for its:

Willingness to adopt new processes and systems which has led to them being the first to pilot new systems and so bring early benefits to their customers.

The products will be manufactured by CTLs factory in China and by Benefons factory in Salo. Benefon will licence the joint venture to produce its current Benefon Q model in China. CTL will buy from Benefon relevant production equipment and material for the Q. The joint venture company will market the Q in Far East markets. Benefon will sell it to the rest of the world.

Benefon immediately benefits from around $5 million of cash from the sale of the equipment and material. Benefons product marketing director Jukka Nieminen becomes chief operating office with overall responsibility of the business operations of Benefon.

These are units formed to develop partnerships and joint-ventures with technology companies and content providers.

He will also be responsible for the management of all current strategic investments including Wildfire Communications and news portal Ananova.

Lap was previously co-head of Morgan Stanleys Global E-Commerce Group and Strategic Ventures the firms corporate venture capital unit.

A new Code of Conduct on international retail roaming prices will help mobile consumers make better-informed decisions about the choice of network current prices and the range of services on offer when they travel in other countries.

The Code was announced by GSM Europe the European interest group of the GSM Association in Sweden last week.

This is all about giving people more choice and better value for money said GSM Europe Chair Caroline van Weede.

The Code of Conduct aims to make life simpler for customers when they go abroad.

Consumers have asked us for more clarity about the services they can get and how much they cost and this is our response.

Operators will ensure that it is easy to obtain clear price information on all calls and text messages sent to and from the phone of a roaming customer. However there should also be information on whether unanswered calls are charged and whether set-up charges are applicable.

Customers will have access to the numbers and website addresses of customer care and information services of the visited network.

These are just a few areas of best practice that already exist in the market. We want to encourage all operators to live up to the same high standards says van Weede.

Among the Codes provisions is that the home page of the operators website should have a clearly visible link to a section containing roaming information.

Operators should provide information to their customers using every means at their disposal. In addition to information via customer care and the internet the Code also encourages a series of other sensible methods that fulfil this objective.

This includes traditional forms of customer service in the high-street shops to newer methods such as WAP e-mail and fax-on-demand.

Mobile operators have a real interest in signing up to this voluntary programme says van Weede.

Customers are always looking for more choice and value for money – and want to use operators they can trust safe in the knowledge they are getting accurate price information. This Code gives consumers the reassurance they need van Weede added.

Oftel last week said that termination charges are still above costs and noted that Vodafone and BTCellnet processed calls at levels higher than would be seen in a truly competitive marketplace.

All four operators will be forced to reduce by 12 per cent a year for four years the amount charged to deliver a call to other mobile and fixed-line operators.

One 2 One PR and marketing manager Neil Bent said:

We are surprised and disappointed that Oftel does not appear to have acted in the long term interests of consumers or the mobile phone industry.

We are disappointed with Oftels proposals to control the cost of calls from fixed lines to mobile and mobile to mobile. The proposals could have a negative impact on the levels of investment by operators in the UK which could in turn slow development of 3G services. Ultimately the UK could lose its position at the forefront of mobile communications and suffer economic consequences.

Oranges director in charge of regulatory affairs Paul Franklin also said it was disappointing Oftel was unwilling to trust market forces and is proposing to extend the current price control.

We question whether Oftels decisions are consistent with the Governments objectives of minimum necessary regulation Franklin said.

BTCellnet is happy with the Oftel measures and called them a step in the right direction.

Oftel also wants operators to provide clearer information on pricing and services and put an end to SIM locking.

Oftel said it was concerned about roaming calls but said that it would assist the European Commissions investigation.

Vodafone said Oftel had failed to recognise the huge costs of 3G licence acquisition and infrastructure deployment costs.

There is no contract to sign or monthly line rental to pay.

The small business service comes available with free group billing free itemised bills for all the phones on the account and international roaming already set up.

Calls are 15p a minute for the first five minutes of use each day then 5p a minute after that. There are no peak rates.

Any company or individual spending more than 30 on UK calls or texts each month gets a loyalty reward of 10 per cent of whatever they spent credited to their account the following month.

Virgin Mobiles small business service is designed to help entre-preneurs such as builders to estate agents drivers to shopkeepers run their ventures more efficiently and cheaply claimed Virgin Mobile boss Sir Richard Branson.

There are no contracts to lock people into no monthly fees to drain their cash-flows just straightforward service and great value he added.

Trivial Pursuit will be available in the UK from April 2001 and will be rolled out internationally thereafter.

The game will be available in 10 languages include localised content and cover six topic categories. Motorola will make it available to all its operator partners so that subscribers can play the game via their service provider.

Codeonline will provide the gaming platform and the technical support to run the games.

Motorolas aim is to extend well-known existing brands into the mobile market and to create new mobile games and brands with application developers.

By bringing consumers established brand name entertainment we achieve our objective of delivering content to a broad segment of the market said Juan Montes director of technology for Motor-olas Personal Communications Sector.

This will include a room at the Hilton an advertisement in the Book of the Night and other priviliges.