Lies, damned lies...

Wired UK: 14 million Brits say they wouldn't be without their mobiles, 15 million are online at home, 9 million have digital television and nearly 5 million now bank online. But the Mori report for online bank Egg also uncovered 9 million Luddites who swear they will never use a PC, and found only 2 per cent of the population bothers with a Wap phone.

Rotten egg: ... and speaking of Britain's bravest bank, Egg last month posted a third quarter loss of more than £18 million ($61.6 million), but gained 120,000 new customers, to 1.2 million. Meanwhile, poor incentives and customer service continue to turn people off net banking, says a Cap Gemini Ernst & Young survey. But it predicts 17 per cent of transactions will be conducted online by 2003.

It's not just us: Switzerland has postponed indefinitely the auction of new-generation mobile-phone licences after the number of bidders dropped to four. The Government had hoped to get $US5.6 billion ($13.3 billion); it is now thought licences will eventually fetch only about $US28 million each.

Do you speak Finnish? Finland's top 50 income earners last year were all past or present executives of Nokia, the country's mobile phone giant, the Finnish Tax Authority has revealed.

Unchain the net: British Telecom has at last introduced unmetered phone tariffs. Pay-per-minute calls have long hampered net and e-commerce development in the sceptre'd isle.

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Mori

Cap Gemini Ernst & Young