MailPush, as the new service is known, allows E-mail users to check for newmessages via fax, phone, cellular or pager -- freeing them from being inconstant contact with their computers. It also notifies senders that theirE-mail has been delivered.

Without it, computer users must be connected online to check messages. Andthey lose contact when away from home or office or otherwise out of reach ofa computer.

MailPush is more convenient, MailPush's marketing vice president MarcSchechtman said in a recent interview as he described the problem millionsface each day in trying to determine if new electronic-mail messages havearrived. The message is in your mailbox, but you don't know it's there untilyou dial in and look, he said.

MailPush is offered directly over the Internet by a unit of Cellcom,Israel's largest wireless phone carrier, which is backed by US-basedBellSouth Corp.

This system also plans to market the service to Internet service providers,which might in turn sell the programme to their customers for a small fee oras a customer loyalty promotion.

Schechtman said he expected major Internet service providers, or ISPs, andeventually phone companies to begin offering the service to customers. Weexpect in the first 12 months that 5 per cent of (US) Internet users will beusing MailPush he added. "We think it's a reasonable goal between the ISPsand phone companies who will deploy this," he said.

The company claims that 8 per cent of the Internet audience in Israel havesigned up for MailPush in the less than one year that the service has beenoffered there.

MailPush plans to market the service to E-mail users in 20 countries by thefall. However, customers of the service can be located anywhere in the worldto receive MailPush notifications via other communications outlets. Thesystem uses powerful computers to comb the Internet every seven minutes tocheck for new messages.

The new system offers the service free for the first month. Customers cansign up directly on the company's Web site at www.mailpush.com, filling outa form that allows them to specify in which ways and where they wish to becontacted.

After the trial, MailPush costs $2.99 per month for basic notificationsdelivered to a customer's pager or to cellular Screen phones able to receivesimple text messaging services.

The customer can also dial in to MailPush on a toll-free number and hearmessages read by a husky-voiced automated attendant using text-to-speechtranslation software.

A premium service, priced at $4.99 per month, offers all the basic phone andpager notifications plus up to 50 notifications via fax. Each additional 50fax notifications per month runs another $3.99.

MailPush is not alone in exploiting this promising niche of the rapidlychanging communications market.

DataLink Systems of San Jose, Calif., offers MailXpress, a service that issimilar to MailPush but targeted more at corporate customers and financialinvestors.