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Technology Stocks : Freeserve (FREE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (43)	12/2/1999 9:11:00 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 58

FREE up 15 3/4 today. Here's the reason why: dailynews.yahoo.com Thursday December 2 7:53 PM ET British Co's Aim For Mobile Internet LONDON (AP) - Britain's No. 1 Internet service provider, Freeserve PLC (NasdaqNM:FREE - news), has teamed up with the country's largest full-service communications group, British Telecommunications PLC (NYSE: BTY - news), to develop wireless access to the Internet. Freeserve and BT's mobile phone unit, BT Cellnet, plan soon to launch sports, entertainment and financial services for cellular phone users, Freeserve said Thursday. By enabling customers to surf the web on their handsets, the partners hope to gain an edge in a market niche that many foresee as having explosive growth potential. BT Cellnet and Freeserve plan late next year to start offering an e-mail notification service for the mobile phones of existing Freeserve customers. Customers will also be able to type short messages on their PCs and send them to any mobile phone user. These services should benefit from BT Cellnet's expected introduction of a high-speed Internet access service for mobile phones in the first half of 2000. ``There is a huge benefit to both organizations in harnessing one another's strengths to take the lead in mobile Internet,' said BT Cellnet managing director Peter Erskine. The Freeserve-BT Cellnet agreement targets Britain's 20 million mobile telephone users, but industry analyst Miles Saltiel questioned its commercial logic. ``This is a deal that plays to the market's sweet spot because the market is very exercised about everything that has to do with the mobile,' said Saltiel of investment bank WestLB Panmure. ``It's a sentiment story rather than a valuation story.' BT Cellnet is one of four mobile phone operators in Britain. The country's largest cellular company, Vodafone AirTouch PLC (NYSE:VOD - news), is pursuing a similar goal of integrating Internet access and mobile phones. Vodafone has launched a hostile offer of $125 billion for Germany's Mannesmann AG, in hope of becoming Europe's market leader in this technology.