Orange has launched what it’s calling the UK’s first multimedia ‘swappable’ benefits on a Pay Monthly tariff.

The company’s ‘Panther’ tariff now lets customers choose from a menu of premium benefits, with the option of changing their choices every month. In addition, Panther will still include an allowance of minutes, text messages and data.

UK customers with 'pay as you go' mobile phones spend an average of 13 days a year browsing retail sites on their mobile devices. The figure comes from a new survey commissioned by mobile marketing provider Velti.

It means that prepay mobile users are spending over a third longer browsing mobile retail sites than their 'pay monthly' counterparts.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal has upheld BT's appeal against Ofcom's ruling that call termination charges for 'non geographic' numbers couldn't be increased.

As a result, BT can now claim higher payments from the UK's mobile networks when connecting calls to 0845, 0870 and 0800 numbers.

Fixed-line telecoms provider Alpha Telecom has announced the launch of a UK virtual mobile network called Alpha Mobile. It's a prepaid mobile service that's expected to be available from over 90,000 retail stores across the UK by the end the year.

Buying a £30 SIM from the MVNO will give customers what the company describes as 'unlimited calls' to landlines and/or mobiles in more than 75 countries.

Although most UK mobile networks are reporting around half of their customers use 'pay as you go' mobile phones, the figures are still substantially smaller in the USA. However, the number of US prepay subscribers is increasing.

The New Millennium Research Council think-tank reports that the total number of prepaid 'no-contract' mobile subscriptions in the US will account for one out of four mobile subscriptions by the end of this year.