Intec is geared to being a large-volume business said Intec managing director Harry Ramis.

When Vodafone moved some of its volumes out it was a wake-up call particularly on costs he added candidly. We replaced much of that volume but we need to re-shape. Joining forces with Fonebak can only help.

Ramis has stayed on as managing director and insists there will be no changes to the structure of the business or to staff.

The decision to sell means we can keep our management structure intact. I like the idea of being a part of the continued success of Intec Group and Fonebak.

Without the management and trained staff Intec would just be another repair centre he said.

We were determined to maintain our high service levels and find a safe harbour for all of our team. The ability to provide on- and off-shore services allows us that opportunity.

Intec and Fonebaks relationship began when Intec provided Fonebak with technical assistance and consultancy on testing and repairing handsets in Romania. A chance meeting in January led to discussions he said.

I have always got on well with (Fonebak CEO) Kathy Woodward and knew that she had an interest in adding a UK warranty repair business he said.

Over the past two years there have been several parties interested in acquiring Intec but this deal was for the right terms at the right time. This move gives Intec a competitive edge allowing us to offer our customers a more flexible solution.

He added: Offshore repair and refurbishment services will provide a low-cost alternative on non-time critical units and provides us with another option to offer our customers complementing our existing UK warranty repairs.

The public often dont understand their rights or how valuable a shot might be. They sign away the universal rights to a picture for a nominal flat fee. It could then be syndicated around the world.

Scoopt members retain copyright to their photographs and receive half every licensing and syndication deal. Members submit pictures by MMS to a shortcode or they can e-mail them via a PC.

(See Comment).

Digicel won a licence in June this year in a spectrum auction and is currently building its network infrastructure going head to head with Cable & Wireless Brewers former employer. 

Brewer walked out of his Cable and Wireless job three months ago after Cable & Wireless director of international business Harris Jones appointed ex-Phones 4U marketing manager Paul Hamburger to a role in charge of Brewer. Jones and Hamburger had both worked together at T-Mobile. Hamburger became commercial director of Caribbean operations requiring Brewer to report to him. Brewer resigned remaining in Barbados on six months gardening leave.

Brewer is best known for his high profile jobs within Cellnet France Telecom and ircell.

Denis OBrien founder and chairman of the Digicel Group commented: Stephens leadership and experience in the telecommunications industry position him to successfully lead Digicel to become the number one mobile telecommunications company in Trinidad and Tobago. We are focused on a rapid rollout of innovative services that will give customers the opportunity to choose a service provider that offers added value superior customer care and wider coverage.

OBrien launched Digicel in 2001 after selling his Irish mobile network Digifone to O2. The company already operates in eight Caribbean countries including Jamaica Barbados and Grenada and is to expand shortly into Haiti.

See White Lines page 48

The report claimed Caudwell had appointed NM Rotchschild to sell the Caudwell Group.

The consensus was that the group would only be likely to be sold in its constituent parts.

The jewel in the crown is 20:20. Phones 4U is struggling and the shops are all on short leases said a senior Carphone Warehouse staffer. The networks already have their own retail presence. 3 has been mentioned as being a possible buyer but [chief operating officer] Gareth Jones has told us he has no intention of owning a chain of high street stores.

He may get an approach from a private equity partner. But I doubt any existing company in the mobile industry would be interested.

A Vodafone executive endorsed the view that the networks would not be interested in Phones 4U as they had already established their retail presence.

Ovum principal analyst John Delaney said:

Its wise to approach unconfirmed press stories about Caudwell with circumspection. However this one seems to be solid and makes some sense. The UKs mobile phone retail market is intensely competitive and is getting more so. The mobile network operators direct retail stores have become a prominent feature on UK high streets. Tesco Superdrug and WH Smith have also moved into mobile retail in various ways making it harder still for Phones 4U to grow either market share or profit margin. If Phones 4U is up for sale it would seem to indicate that Caudwell is not thrilled about the prospect of eroding his hard-won personal fortune to fuel the increasingly steep uphill climb to grow the Phones 4U business.

Delaney added: Perhaps hes decided that hed prefer to take the cash and let someone else try as he did with service-provider subsidiary SinglePoint which he sold to Vodafone for around 400 million. It seems that hes looking to repeat that coup on an even larger scale.

One option could be that Caudwell might approach a rival distributor and/or retailer to take over the running of the group.

Meanwhile Caudwell is proving uncontactable by journalists. All enquiries are being routed to David Ginivan group head of Caudwell PR who is telling the media:

We dont comment on market speculation about acquisitions flotations or disposals of any kind. The Caudwell Group has always been surrounded by speculation. I have no comment.

See Business Watch page 14;

White LInes page 48

A young woman wanted to get two Sony Ericsson K608i phones on 3 said Fone Doctor owner Faisal Sheikh. All she cared about was getting the phone for free she wasnt bothered what tariff she went on.

While he was helping her another woman came in wanting the same deal. Both produced bank cards from one bank and bank statements from another.

Sheikh discovered both cards had been stopped. He called the police and stalled the women until they could arrive.

They both started crying and said theyd been put up to it by a third party and they were handcuffed and taken away.

In June a woman who tried to connect a Nokia 6680 to 3s Talk and Text 900 plan at Fone Doctor was arrested.

Sheikh added: Identity fraud is a huge problem especially on 3. Despite my vigilance I have 36000 worth of clawback from 3 in the past couple of months.

Were in discussions with three companies about a possible acquisition said Sendo CEO Hugh Brogan. I cant confirm which but talks will be concluded within a matter of weeks.

According to Brogan Sendo has been looking for investment since the beginning of the year. We eventually reduced the number of suitors to two with one clearly at the forefront and then 10 days ago a third company got involved which has opened things up again.

Motorola appears the most likely to acquire Sendo the only British handset manufacturer though Emblaze is also understood to have held talks with the company.

Motorola declined to comment.

Emblaze CEO Laurence Alexander said: I know Hugh Brogan very well and have spoken to him a number of times during the past few months.

An industry source said: Motorola is the hot favourite and it makes sense because it would like Sendos Series 60 technology. But I also know that Sendo held talks a few months ago with Emblaze as well though they ended badly. Talks between the two could however have been re-started.

Sendo which supplies handsets to Vodafone has been embroiled in court battles in recent years. It was at the point of launching the first smartphone with a Microsoft operating system when it discovered that Taiwanese manufacturer HTC was ready to unveil its own Windows-based handset in the form of the SPV on Orange.

Sendo started legal proceedings for patent infringement against Microsoft a Sendo shareholder before settling out of court. It also took Orange to court.

Sendo should have been more humble treated Microsoft as a partner and not taken it to court added the source.

It could have effectively been a development house for Microsoft and kept it on as an investor instead of going it alone and going to the wall. It also put to bed any chance of doing business with Orange by taking it to court.

Instead of stealing a march on other manufacturers with a Windows smartphone it took it another year-and-a-half to launch the X with a Series 60 platform. It was a bit ambitious. It gave it a good crack. But who is making money in manufacturing now apart from Nokia and a few others?

Sendo which has a 1.5 per cent share of the global handset market has appointed restructuring company Kroll to advise it following an acquisition. Sendo has 330 staff and a sales forecast of 6.5 to 7 million units this year. Brogan said that no redundancies would occur.

The restructuring depends on which deal we choose said Brogan. But the intention of all three parties is to retain the R&D workforce in Birmingham. Certainly no job cuts have been made so far.

The brand appears likely to go however.

We have been trying to raise cash since the beginning of the year he added. Frankly because the business has grown like hell since the beginning and most notably in the past year it has created a strong demand for an injection of cash.

Global shipments were 1.6 million units in 2003 and 4.5 million last year he said.

To fund the growth we would have to increase the cashflow to the company from somewhere else – whether through investment or a public offering or by funding the growth ourselves said Brogan.

Brogan started the company six years ago in an office at his home. It now has a presence in 40 different countries. Last year the firm grew by 300 per cent which put an enormous strain on the company.

Sendo has proven that you can start something with nothing in this industry still and build it up to a global presence even if it is not a global competitor as such said Brogan. We have never been properly funded. The whole thing has been done on meagre money compared with our competitors. You need a brand if you are going to operate in the market at the highest level.

Brogan added:

Im 41. I have plenty of gas left in the tank. I will take a break and gather my thoughts but I wont leave the industry.

There are 60 million SIM cards in the market and an estimated churn of 20 per cent each year said EasyMobile chief commercial officer Sandy Munro. That means there are 12 million switching customers available each year which equates to one million per month.

Online sales make up five per cent of all sales in the sector including high street and network sales.

EasyMobile chief executive Frank Rasmussen said that the figures vindicated the service after reports that it had only managed to attract 5000 customers in two months.

Not only did we manage to implement the service in two months but we have made an impact on the UK market he said.

EasyMobile informed customers it now reserves the right to close the accounts of customers with more than five SIM cards. It also said that it would use credit reference agencies at sign-up or upgrade of services from now on.

The thief used the phone to call overseas sex lines but managed to remain undetected because the handsets owner a woman named Bonnie So did not even realise the phone had been stolen.

The mix-up happened when So bought a new Vodafone contract handset while she was still in contract on her old handset.

Rather than use both phones she simply diverted calls from the old handset to the new one.

So had no idea the old phone was even missing until she started getting suspicious calls asking for Kenny.

She notified the police and Vodafone which suspended the line but got an unpleasant surprise when her phone bill came in a few weeks later with a whopping 15312 balance.

Vodafone said she was liable for the costs as she had failed to inform the network of the lost handset soon enough according to the terms of her contract.

However she complained to consumer magazine Which?. After the magazine took up her case the operator eventually had a change of heart and agreed to foot the cost of the bill itself.

A Vodafone spokesman confirmed that the customer was technically liable but that the operator had relented because it accepted that it should have noticed the unusually high spend.

We will look at these things on a case by case basis he said.

This certainly served as a lesson to us and as a result we have tightened up our procedures on credit to make sure this kind of high spend couldnt go undetected again in the future.

The spokesman stressed that it is a customers responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of their phone.

What is important is that we mustnt set a precedent whereby customers think Vodafone is responsible for their call spend.

The schemes were brought to his attention during his appearances on the new BBC2 reality TV show Dragons Den in which budding entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of possible investors including Jones.

Jones reckons he took 100 calls from ideas people in the week since the first episode aired and 10 calls from within the mobile phone sector. He is holding talks with two mobile phone entrepreneurs as a result.

Its very much based around stirring entrepreneurial spirit in the UK said Jones of Dragons Den.

There are a lot of budding entrepreneurs out there and this is a chance for them to pitch their ideas and maybe get some funding.

There are several ideas that I do actually invest in during the course of the series. I invested 75000 in an umbrella dispensing machine in the first episode and well over 100000 in a couple of other ideas. More than half of them are going extremely well but we finished filming a little over a month ago so its still early days Jones added.

For me its about real business ideas being thrown about and the opportunity to invest in them. Its also about being on TV and putting Phones International on the map.

The next episode of Dragons Den the third of six airs next Tuesday (January 18) at 8pm.

The woman allegedly used a false name and identification in an attempt to connect a Nokia 6680 to 3s Talk and Text 900 plan. Phone Doctors and 3 are putting together a case in order to prosecute.

Faisal Sheikh manager of Phone Doctors was alerted when he recognised the name she was using.

I recognised her as someone who had been in the previous week but she told me it was her first time in the store and that I was mistaken.

When I asked her for identification she produced a bank statement and a passport.

When I saw the passport I recognised her name instantly. I had been clawed back on a connection on the same tariff but with the Motorola E1000 by a customer with the same name at my London Bridge store on January 26.

While I was gathering the proofs for this connection two more connections on the same tariff – both Nokia 6680s – were made under the same name but in my Victoria store.

I asked my staff to start putting her connection through then I called Hugh Symons and the police from my basement repairs lab. After an hour-and-a-half she was arrested. Her name was not the same as on the passport and bank statement.

Hugh Symons told Sheikh that 14 connections had been obtained under her name through its dealers. He added: The networks need to provide us with better security in the connection process.

Hugh Symons sales manager Angie Simpson said:

We are putting information together so that 3 and Phone Doctors can prosecute. It would be nice to see something happen so that the networks could prosecute more easily.

Dealers reputations are at risk. We have to make sure that we can help them as much as we can. There is often a pattern to this kind of fraudulent activity and we look to warn dealers that are in the local area. The important thing is to pick it up as quickly as we can and flag it up to dealers.