O2 has announced Fixed Number Anywhere, a new service providing small businesses with a landline number that rings straight through to a mobile phone.

The first service of its kind to be offered in the UK by a major mobile operator, Fixed Number Anywhere allows small businesses to take incoming landline calls directly on a mobile phone. The service, which launches in August, has been designed for small businesses who maintain a landline number to show customers their business is local and established, but spend long periods away from their desk. By linking landline numbers directly to their mobile phone, Fixed Number Anywhere will help these businesses minimise missed calls while eliminating expensive call diverts.

It follows an extensive study conducted by O2 (NYSE: TEF), which revealed that despite small businesses spending record amounts of time out of the office, nearly 70 per cent still have a fixed landline number to their desk. Providing a sense of security for customers, being able to appear as a local business and presenting a well established image were identified as the key benefits of keeping a landline.

Businesses using Fixed Number Anywhere can keep their existing BT telephone number or choose from a new number with a local geographical or Free Phone code. Up to five landline numbers can be linked to the same mobile phone allowing small businesses to portray a local image, whilst extending their geographical reach.

Calls made to a mobile via the Fixed Number Anywhere service are not charged for by O2 and will be charged to the caller at their standard rate for the fixed number dialled. Businesses bringing an existing BT 01 or 02 landline number to O2 and taking a new mobile connection will receive the service for free. The service is available at a fixed price of £10 per month for 01 or 02 landline numbers and £15 per month for 0808 free phone numbers.

For more information visit O2.co.uk.

And to complete my trio of O2 (NYSE: TEF) news, here’s perhaps a somewhat surprising move by O2 in to … finance?!

O2 has partnered with NatWest to make its debut in the personal finance market with the launch of O2 Money. The first products from O2 Money, supported by NatWest, are two cash cards, designed to give people greater control of their money.

The O2 Money cash cards are two completely Fee-Free pre-paid Visa cards, which will help people better manage their spending money by never going overdrawn and with real-time balance updates sent to their mobile phone. They combine a clear, simple and transparent approach to banking with all the benefits of mobile – always with you and immediate. The cards are ideally suited to help O2 customers in the current economic climate and will be available by the end of August

“The strength of our brand and relationship with our customers gives us the ideal opportunity to take O2 into a completely new market,” said Ronan Dunne, O2’s UK Chief Executive. “By bringing a fresh, transparent and customer-focused approach to pre-paid cards, we plan to drive this market and take a significant share. In partnership with NatWest, O2 Money is delivering new ways of helping our customers better connect with their money.”

The two pre-pay cards are powered through a partnership with NatWest and are called Cash Manager and Load & Go. They will allow people to ring-fence their disposable income and never spend more than has been loaded onto the card. They can be used almost anywhere that accepts Visa within the UK and abroad, as well as online, and will only be available to O2 customers.

Ronan Dunne continued, “O2 has a strong and successful track record of innovation and O2 Money will represent a launchpad into a wide range of mobile banking services. We believe that we are at the start of a journey towards the coming together of phone and wallet and we intend, through O2 Money, to be at the forefront of this trend. This launch represents an important step towards O2 becoming a leading service provider with mobile at its core.”

Key features of the two cards include:

Cash Manager

• The Cash Manager card is ideal for anyone who needs to balance essential outgoings such as rent, mortgage and bills with their disposable spending money

• Money can be loaded onto Cash Manager through regular or single online transfers

• This lets the customer ring-fence their disposable income and ensure that cash to cover essentials is left untouched

• The Cash Manager card can then be used in a similar way to any normal debit card, with the additional benefit of real time balance updates to your mobile after every transaction

• It is not possible to spend more than has been pre-loaded onto the Cash Manager card

• Cash Manager is completely free of all fees and charges when used within the UK*. As it is not possible to spend more than has been loaded onto the card, there is no interest charged

• It is available free and exclusively to O2 Pay Monthly and active Pay & Go customers

Load & Go

• This card is a cash management tool that provides young people (aged 13 and over) with the benefits of a Visa card, but within a safe framework. It gives them the freedom to spend online and on the high street, and to withdraw their money from an ATM

• Parents can load money onto their child’s card over the Internet

• Like Cash Manager, it is not possible to spend more than has been pre-loaded onto the Load & Go card

• A letter will be sent to the parent or guardian of anyone under the age of 16, to inform them of the application for Load & Go

• Load & Go cannot be used in certain retail outlets and websites, such as online gambling sites

• Real time text balance updates are provided to your mobile every time the card is used

• The Load & Go card can have money loaded onto it without any charges at over 20,000 locations across the country including all O2 stores, as well as PayPoint and e-pay outlets. This can then be spent in a similar way to a debit card via the Visa network

• It offers a much safer alternative to carrying cash around as it uses Chip and Pin security and can be blocked/replaced if stolen or lost, ensuring the money is safe and secure

• Load & Go is completely free of all fees and charges when used within the UK*. As it is not possible to spend more than has been loaded onto the card, there is no interest charged

• It is available to all O2 pay monthly and active Pay & Go customers aged 13 and over

The O2 Money cards will be available to apply for from mid-August on O2’s website. For more information, you can go here.

Still on an O2 (NYSE: TEF) tip…

… Mobile broadband users in Manchester are being encouraged to swap their current networks mobile broadband dongle for a free O2 dongle. O2 is launching a mobile broadband amnesty in all stores across the city, handing out free O2 Pay & Go dongles to customers in exchange for a competitor dongle.

Running for two weeks from 17-30 July, O2’s mobile broadband amnesty aims to show the benefits of great customer service and simple, easy to use products. More importantly this gives customers an easy, low cost way to try out O2’s service.

The amnesty will run across O2 stores in the Manchester area:

Altrincham, Ashton-Under-Lyme, Victoria Plaza Bolton, Bury, Denton, Oldham, Rochdale, St Helens, Warrington, Grand Arcade Wigan, Woodcock Square Wigan, Arndale Centre Manchester, Cross St Manchester, Market Street Manchester, Salford Quays, Northwich, Stockport and two stores in the Trafford Centre.

Jonathan Earle, Head of Pay Monthly, said: “We believe that O2 Mobile Broadband provides the best quality service available but we don’t want to just say it, we want people to try it for themselves. With O2’s mobile broadband amnesty we are giving other mobile broadband users the chance to give us a try without having to commit to a lengthy contract.

“Since mobile broadband was launched, the level of customer service and experience provided may not have been as high in some of our competitor’s minds as it should have been. At O2, we believe that customer experience is key and have put in place a number of mechanisms across our product range to ensure this happens. Proof of this desire was rewarded earlier this year when our mobile broadband ranked highest in customer satisfaction according to a J.D. Power and Associates study.”

To take up the offer of a free O2 Mobile Broadband Pay & Go dongle, customers should go into their nearest store, hand in their current dongle and they will be given the O2 dongle in exchange. The offer is open to all mobile broadband customers on other networks and O2 mobile broadband customers who are out of contract.

Being the proud owner of one, I can confirm the O2 Mobile Broadband Pay & Go dongle works very well!

O2 has announced that O2 Litmus, the community dedicated to finding and nurturing the very best new mobile, wireless and internet-enabled applications and services, has launched a new competition, ‘’the O2 (NYSE: TEF) App Showdown’’.

With a prize of £10,000 for the winning entry, the O2 App Showdown is a hunt for the best new iPhone app and the iPhone user community will help select the winner. All O2 UK iPhone customers are eligible to apply to be a member of the judging panel.

The competition launched on Monday 20th July and is running for two months – the winning iPhone app will help build a lasting relationship between O2 and its iPhone customers. In addition to winning the £10,000 prize, the winning developer will have their app promoted to O2’s iPhone customers in the UK.

Peter Rampling, O2’s Marketing Director said: “Since we launched Litmus last year, we’ve seen some fantastic innovation and I believe that working together with the world-wide Litmus community we can develop amazing applications for O2 customers, initially on iPhone and then all our devices – the beauty of Litmus is that we will have a community of O2 customers who will also vote for their favourite.”

You can of course find out more here.

The Toshiba (OTCPK: TOSBF) TG01, which is the fastest Windows Mobile device on the planet thanks to the 1 GHz Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) processor inside, is being sold in Germany via O2 (NYSE: TEF) with a virus conveniently pre-installed says O2 spokesman Albert Fetscher. How this happened is anyone’s guess, and of course O2 is saying this impacts few devices. If you’ve purchased this device via O2 Germany, go ahead and call customer service. I only have one question for O2: are you going to check any other territories where you’ve sold the G01? You’re a huge operator after all.

Will got a chance to play with the TG01 at Mobile World Congress 2009, check out his video and photos.

[Via: Engadget Mobile, Unwired View, Inside-Handy]

O2 has announced an agreement with Twitter which will allow O2 (NYSE: TEF) customers to receive SMS alerts from Twitter for free from August. This joins existing agreements O2 has with Facebook and Bebo, meaning that O2 customers can enjoy free SMS alerts from all three main social networking sites*.

The Twitter deal allows O2 customers to receive tweets from chosen friends, @mentions, and direct messages via SMS. They can also send and reply to tweets by text which will come from their bundle or be charged at the standard network rate**. Customers can already access their Twitter account using their mobile phone and as part of the agreement, Twitter’s mobile site will be heavily promoted on O2 Active.

Social networking over mobile is currently experiencing phenomenal growth. Over a million customers per month now access social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook using O2 Active. This is in addition to the hundreds of thousands of iPhone customers who have downloaded social networking applications. Over 12 million messages from Facebook are received by O2 customers every month.

“We believe that mobile will soon become the most popular way of accessing social networking sites, giving real time access to tweets and status updates wherever you are,” said Antony Douglas, Head of Content at O2. “The agreements we now have in place with Twitter and the other key sites brings this a step closer, making it quick and easy for O2 customers to access their favourite social networks straight from their mobile.”

The agreement with O2 in the UK will form a framework for future agreements between Twitter and Telefónica operations globally.

[*Subject to excessive use policy. Users will be asked to moderate their use of the service if they exceed 600 messages per month. **Text messages cost 10p each out of bundle]

For the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre users out there patiently awaiting webOS 1.1.0, I’ve got a little bit of good news this morning. Evgeny over at the Palm webOS Blog took the opportunity to fiddle around with a Palm Pre while at a press briefing with Palm and O2 (NYSE: TEF). He popped open the Device Info menu to see if anything was new… and to his surprise, webOS 1.1.0 was on-board. This is good news, only more confirmation that 1.1.0 will hit us sometime within the next few weeks. webOS 1.1.0 will bring the following updates and features:

• IT-initiated remote wipe
• Required PIN with complexity
• Device wipe after a certain number of failed PIN attempts
• Auto-lock
• Improved digital certificates

Stay tuned for more…

[Via: PreCentral]

O2 (NYSE: TEF) has effectively confirmed that they are going to be carrying the first Samsung Android handset, in the shape of the i7500 Galaxy. The handset makes an appearance in the July edition of their catalogue, in the ‘coming soon’ section.

The supposed arrival date for the handset is August – which is interesting itself, as that puts it right between the iPhone 3GS (now) and the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre (October I reckon…) in terms of ‘go-live’ date!

The i7500 is well-loaded with tech too – 5MP camera, 8GB memory – how does that sound?

Crumbs – now what if O2 get the Toshiba (OTCPK: TOSBF) TG01 in as well – then they will have a stable of new, funky devices, that includes:

• iPhone OS(X)
• WebOS
• Android
• WinMo

That’s a fairly complete spread!

[Via: TechRadar]

Yep. You can learn all about the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre (well not all about, but some about) on O2 (NYSE: TEF)’s new ‘coming soon’ page for the device. Since O2 confirmed it was going to be bringing the Pre to the UK, Germany, and Ireland, there’s been much talk – and now there’s a nice set of info ready too!

The pages highlights the UI, the calendar, and the layered contacts, as they call them – not sure if that is what I would have focused on, but then again I didn’t write the page

Pricing and availability are TBC, but I’d reckon a pricepoint very similar to the iPhone or just below, plus a timeframe of October…..! Any other bets?

Palm (NSDQ: PALM) has gone official with their plans for the Pre in Europe, going with Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) as their primary carrier. O2 (NYSE: TEF) in the UK, Ireland and Germany, and Movistar in Spain will be offering the Pre sometime before the holidays, according to the release, but German banners have hinted at a release as early as October (though that was quickly changed to Fall). The first GSM Pres we saw were packing Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) SIM cards, which led us to believe that they had the big exclusive, but that’s clearly not the case, for better or worse. Still, good news for Europe – no doubt we’ll see Palm’s tour-de-force make its way across other European countries in no time. You can sign up for notification e-mails for Spain here, Germany here, and UK/Ireland here.

Oh, and you can stop complaining now, Ben.

[via BusinessWire]