The frustration of needing to make an important phone call from your mobile only to find it out of battery power could be over as recharging kiosks are introduced across London, UK.

Kiosk manufacturer Nearplay Systems has created so-called "Charge Me" booths for mobile phones and handheld computers that will allow users to charge up their devices.

Users will have to pay for the service and 50p will provide people with 20 to 25 minutes of charge time and take five minutes to top up phones.

�1 will provide around 45 minutes of talk time and take 10 minutes to charge

Pilot around London

Nearplay is hoping the idea will end the frustration of dead batteries.

"How often have you been in the middle of an important call, only to be suddenly cut off because your battery went dead?" asked Charge Me's director of business development, Dr Janko Mrsic-Flogel.

"It is commonplace mobile phone scenarios like this that makes Charge Me such an obvious communications solution," he said.

A pilot of the free-standing, circular kiosks will be run in a variety of public locations around London, including Victoria and Waterloo stations and Heathrow Airport.

Up to 12 people can recharge their mobile devices simultaneously and the booth supports all common models from Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Siemens, Sony, Samsung and Palm.

If the kiosks are a success, Charge Me is hoping to introduce advertising to the booths.