Thomas Chambers chief financial officer for Symbian said: Our units have increased by 65 per cent year on year and we continue to grow the number of units shipped. Since the commencement of Symbian OS we have shipped 82.8 million phones.

He added: People want more functionality from handsets these days. Its not just a phone anymore its an MP3 player and a camera too. Therefore I see this as the beginning; its only the start of things for the smartphone market.

Nigel Clifford chief executive officer of Symbian said: Symbian continued to lead the smartphone market in Q2 2006 with more than 12.3 million Symbian smartphones shipping worldwide. During Q2 Symbians revenues grew to GBP41.2 million – an increase of 54 per cent on Q2 2005.

Symbian confirmed that 23 new phone models were shipped in Q2 2006. He added: As TV and micropayment are built in to phones the smartphone market will continue to grow. I do still think people need to be educated on the benefits of smartphones but that process has begun and I think it will continue to grow.

This means that 20 per cent of mobile users now regularly use WAP capability on their phones to download ringtones games wallpapers or access the Internet on the move.

The MDA has attributed the rise to the networks creation of mobile Internet zones such as Orange World and O2 Active.

The MDA now plan to issue mobile Internet user figures on a monthly basis.

Software provider SEVEN said the announcement meant more mobile users would now be able to take advantage of push e-mail.

Henrik Voigt director and head of enterprise solutions at Sony Ericsson said: There is increasing demand for access to mobile e-mail on every level of mobile phone.

SEVEN developed its Always-On products to ensure that users with mass market Java-enabled phones now enjoy the same level of user experience previously only available on business devices like the Blackberry.

The service allows e-mails to be pushed directly to the device as they are delivered to the e-mail server. Further push e-mail handsets will follow.

The site will be accessed directly from the O2 Active portal allowing all O2 customers with a WAP capable phone and an eBay account immediate access to it. This will allow users to track sales and bids on the go.

Familiar ?My eBay features will be viewable from virtually any handset including ?items I am watching ?items I am bidding on ?items I am selling and ?items I have won. Users will also be able to bid for goods in real time.

O2 general manager of content Simon Dean said: eBay is the latest in a growing list of well-known brands that really appreciate the potential of converging their Internet services with mobile. Our experience with eBay on i-mode has shown us there is really strong demand for it from our customers who really want to engage with these types of services.

The move will mean that O2 Actives 6.4 million users will be able to select from more than 13000 categories just as they can on a PC and a fixed Internet connection.

Humphrey paid off the clubs debts last week cleared the board and installed himself as chairman and trustee. The club costs GBP4000 a year to run.

He has also changed the teams longstanding black-and-white striped football kit for a purple and yellow uniform reflecting its new sponsor Go Mobile.

Despite reaching the second round of the FA Vase in the 2003-04 season the club had no sponsorship last season and its players were voluntary. Humphrey has put its players on a wage and obtained 20 sponsorship deals through friends within the industry. He has also renamed its home a basic pitch and club house the Communications Stadium.

The club has gone bust. I sat down with the committee last week and agreed to help out. We want to get it into the football league said Humphrey.

The handset features i-mode which allows users to instantly access specific Internet sites as well as use i-mail and MMS.

LG Mobile sales and marketing director John Barton said: With i-mode the LG L343i provides access to a huge range of specifically convenient i-mode services.

The LG L343i also has an in-built digital camera with flash and 4x zoom as well as 40 polyphonic ringtones.

The phone is available to buy in O2 stores now.

The retailer has been promoting the cash for old mobiles scheme in its UK stores since February. The number of handsets reclaimed for re-use and recycling is 82 per cent higher than the same period in 2005.

Since February GBP85000 has been paid out to Argos customers trading in their mobiles in cash and Argos credits held in envirocards (an electronic preloaded payment card). The Argos charity partner – Help the Hospices – has also gained GBP18000.

Pete Petrondas founder of Eazyfone Group which runs the Envirofone scheme said: The success of our mobile trade-in scheme demonstrates how recycling electrical and electric equipment can be integrated seamlessly into normal consumer behaviour.

Around 20000 text messages were sent to British Airways passengers cabin crew and cargo staff over August 10-14 alerting them of flight delays and cancellations caused by the terror-threat disruption.

Robert Thurner commercial director at mobile marketing agency Incentivated said: In addition there was a heavy volume of texts sent informing passengers that services were getting back to normal. He added: This is a perfect illustration of how mobile marketing enables airlines to communicate quickly and easily with customers by providing realtime travel information.

Chris Tombs said: I am really looking forward to joining the Timico team with its strong customer service ethos and highly experienced people.

Prior to joining Timico Tombs spent three years at Vodafone UK as enterprise customer manager. And before joining Vodafone he was director of Project Telecom for four years.

Tombs will be responsible for the operations and the ongoing development and growth of the business and will begin work immediately.

The three-month offer is the first multi-play bundles offer from Virgin since its takeover by cable company NTL in April. It combines NTLs two Virgin-branded services: Virgin Mobile and Virgin.net. More bundled offers will follow involving combinations of NTLs fixed line mobile broadband cable television offerings.

Any new Virgin Mobile customers that opt in to its GBP15 and GBP30 SIM-only contract tariffs can register for 12 months free broadband with Virgin.net. The offer allows speeds of up to 8Mbps and a monthly download allowance of 6GB.

A Virgin Mobile spokesperson said: It is the first bundled offer since the takeover and is intended to see how much interest there is out there. We are working on more bundled offers for the near future.

Customers can cancel their SIM-only contracts but are committed to re-paying the remainder of their broadband package in full.

Meanwhile speculation mounted last week that a private equity consortium is on the verge of bidding more than GBP10 billion for NTL. US buyout specialist Providence Equity was being tipped to head up any consortium of bidders.