Carriers - Briefs

Oftel's director general Dave Edmonds concluded last week that Vodafone and BTCellnet continue to have too much influence in the UK mobile market. The ruling means that the two incumbent mobile operators must continue to provide other service providers with access to their networks on non-discriminatory terms and publish their respective terms and conditions, and charges for their services.

Nextel Communications has rolled out a wireless service that gives users one phone number worldwide at a flat per-minute rate for international calls. Nextel Worldwide is available in more than 65 countries. The service is targeted at world travellers who find international calls both difficult and expensive to make. Unlike some competing international offerings, Nextel's service does not require customers to switch phones or phone chips and the same number can be used wherever the service is available.

BT is on target to deliver high-speed internet access over copper phone lines this summer, after announcing last week that it has upgraded 400 phone exchanges in major UK cities. Since last November the telco has been installing asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) technology in exchanges that cover some six million homes and businesses in cities including Manchester and London. BT now plans to equip an additional 100 exchanges, providing access to a further 15 towns and cities, by the middle of this year.

Lucent introduced a new Voice eXtensible Mark Language (VoiceXML) server that it says will facilitate the development of high-traffic voice-enabled web applications. The US firm claims that its speech server is the product that will lead to the use of voice commands and output on websites by allowing telcos or ISPs to deal with hundreds and thousands of voice hits on a website.

Mobile phone users in the UK will soon be able to top up pay-as-you-go credits on their pre-pay phones using the UK network of hole-in-the-wall cash machines. High street banks are currently in discussions to connect credit network systems' cash machines to mobile phone firms.