Seventeen stores have been closed and stock redistributed throughout the business. Around70 staff have been made redundant.

Joint administrator Andrew Hosking from HLB Kidsons told Mobile News:

Taking these steps means the core business is protected and continues to trade. Im hopeful the core business will survive. We have had some significant expressions of interest from some corporate entities of significant size. Im confident that we will achieve the disposal of the business as a going concern.

Hosking hopes a sale will be completed next week. A consortium of dealers based in the North of the country is rumoured to be a front-runner to take over Phone People. A corporate financier with a working out of Salford is taking a detailed interest in the administration process.

I honestly dont know who is in the running said Hosking

We are dealing with this sale on a strictly impartial basis. Requests for information about Phone People are handled by a colleague in London who co-ordinates everything from there. He doesnt tell me the identities of those who have made approaches. There would still be time for someone who wants to buy Phone People to give us a call after this issue of

Mobile News has been published. They would be in with as good a chance of buying the company as those who we have been talking to for some time said Hosking.

I have been extremely impressed with the calibre of the parties who have expressed an interest thus far. If it had just been one or two companies sniffing around Id be disappointed. But we have had what I would describe as significant levels of interest. Ive been very happy and impressed by the level of support offered to us by Orange and One 2 One. A lot of Vodafone connections have historically gone through Phones 4U. They have been courteous and were in discussion about reaching an agreement.

Were also talking to RSL COM about the relatively few BT Cellnet connections we made. It is our aim to offer a company which has in place agreements with at least three of the four airtime providers.

There have been a number of difficulties. But Im optimistic about the outcome. At the moment the staff have been very supportive.

Hopefully we can save the company save the jobs and go on to bigger and better things. Fundamentally the business is sound.

The Administration has afforded the company some protection. We are straightening things out with suppliers who wouldnt supply.

Were negotiating about rents and leases. Theres every chance that well be able to restore the company to its former glory. But there are no guarantees Hosking said.

Yes Telecom MD Colin Jones confirmed that the deal he had been brokering to rescue Phone People had collapsed.

We had an equity investment in the Phone People. We found a very different financial position within the company to the one we expected. We decided there was nothing further we could do to keep funding the company said jones.

We were involved for three weeks overall. In trying to keep Phone People going we paid salaries and made some initial commitment to creditors. Im not prepared to disclose the amount in total but it was a significant sum he added.

In fact Yes is believed to have spent more than 740000 shoring up Phone People for a month paying salaries and suppliers.

Phone People Amjad Baig said Yes Telecoms statement to

Mobile News that he was no longer an executive director of Phone People was not true.

I was managing director at that point and I still am now. Ive nothing more to say said Baig.

But Andrew Hosking said:

I wouldnt want anyone to think that Amjad Baig is running the company now. His powers at the moment are effectively suspended because the administration takes priority and people trade with me.

Amjads executive powers are suspended. Hes there for background and business knowledge and sometimes hell advise us on an area of his particular expertise added Hosking.

Yes Telecom announced in February it had taken a 50 per cent stake in The Phone People.

At the time Colin Jones said:

The Phone People provides a sound commercial investment opportunity for Yes Telecom while Amjad Baig was reported as saying he looked forward to a strong partnership with people he could trust.

Yes Telecom backer Freddie Fazelynia who sold his company AAA Telecom to Vodafone for around 7.5 million is understood to be less than pleased that much of his investment has been spent on the abortive Phone People venture.

Industry sources claim Fazelynia has demanded that Jones and his team produce a plan to show how the money lost on The Phone

People can be recovered.

N-Gage is struggling because it is overpriced. Nokias ad campaign is missing the mass market. The price should come down to around 150. Nokia hasnt learned from the likes of Sony. You need to give the hardware away and make your profit on the games he says.

Unique is to distribute content from provider G7 in games packs from 2.99 upwards.

Mobile gaming will be huge. But people dont want to download games. They want to buy something that it is easy to load and use and is sensibly priced he said.

The Government has spent 3 million to set up the countrys first National Mobile Phone Crime Unit.

The unit will be launched on Wednesday (December 17) at Notting Dale police station in Knightsbridge London.

The unit has been partially operational for a number of months. But the move to permanent premises signals that it is now fully operational.

Specially trained detectives from around the country will gather intelligence investigate and arrest individuals involved in mobile phone crime from handset theft to the reprogramming of IMEI numbers.

An industry representative will liaise between the mobile phone industry and police.

Mobile phone theft accounts for between a half and a third of all street robberies. Around 700000 phones were reported stolen between 2000 and 2001.

Ormond will be in charge of all UK operations reporting to NEC Europe managing director Toshiaki Yamafuji.

Tony Hutsons role as divisional director of NEC UK is unchanged.

The appointment of Derek Ormond as managing director of NEC UK confirms NECs policy of localising senior management. His in-depth knowledge of our company and our European activities made Ormond the ideal candidate for the job. He will introduce and develop business strategies to maintain NECs leadership in the marketplace said Yamafuji.

One 2 One was worried that its rivals could have used the data in a Christmas ad campaign and took the matter to court.

Because of the court ruling Vodafone and Cellnet did not see the report until four days ago (December 10) and only then under conditions of strict confidentiality.

Its main conclusions and how Oftel intends to implement them will be published tomorrow (December 15) and the full report will be out next month.

The MMC report follows a request on March 5 from then Oftel director general Don Cruickshank to investigate calls to mobiles. One 2 One assisted and feared confidential information it provided would be seen by Vodafone and Cellnet. The Secretary of State for Industry will now decide which parts of the report are to be excluded from publication.

BT lost its argument that it should see the confidential information about One 2 One.

Throughout lengthy discussions with Oftel our primary concern has been to ensure that we are not disadvantaged because our larger and longer-established competitors have early access to information which may well change the shape of the mobile market said One 2 One policy director Robin Saphra.

Vodafone Cellnet and BT will receive just four days advance notification of the MMCs conclusions.

In the past Oftel would have released copies of the draft report to the networks to allow them to make representations to the Secretary of State about commercially sensitive information.

Although One 2 One is not actually named it did provide confidential information to help the MMC understand how the mobile market worked. One 2 One felt existing regulations did not protect this information from being passed on to Vodafone and Cellnet.

Said PocketPhone Shop managing director Simon Jordan:

We struck a deal with Kevin on the basis of implicit trust in both directions. We believe it worked well for both us and Brightpoint. However we are unhappy with the way in which Kevin has departed the company and dont feel we have the same rapport with the current management.

Members of the public were searched as they attended the Court hearing in which an application was made for five of the defendants to appear in handcuffs.

Accused are customs employee Kailash Sawhney (48) Andrew Nicholas (37) Gunsum Patel (54) Nathanial Dass (41) Ibrahim Karagozlu (41) Andreas Demetriou (34) Mehmet Karagozlu (46) and Tony Atoniou (30).

The magistrate refused the application for handcuffs and remanded the men in custody to appeal at Belmarsh magistrates court today (December 14).

Sawhney Patel and Dass are each charged with two offences of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. The other five are each charged with one offence following a joint customs and police operation involving the Complaints Investigation Bureau.

The scam involved importing phones VAT-free from Eire and other countries and selling them without paying tax to Customs and Excise.

The men from Nottingham Derbyshire Wales and London. set up a string of companies to sell the VAT-loaded phones.

They then closed down their firms without handing the VAT over. Dozens of companies were set up and closed overnight when VAT bills became due.

The trial at Merryhill Crown Court West Midlands started in September after a year-long investigation by officers of the Nottingham office of the Midlands National Investigations Service.

Eight of the men pleaded guilty. Two who pleaded not guilty were found guilty after a 28-hour deliberation by the jury. They were Anthony Pointer (50) from Cardiff and Kan Sang Tang (39) from Nottingham. Pointer was jailed for five years six months including three months for contempt.

He was also ordered to repay 18000 or face another year behind bars and was banned from being a company director for 10 years.

Kan Sang Tang was jailed for five years.

The other jailed men are Nazir Ahmed (five years) Franco Lumber (four years) Roger Cruttendon (three years and four months) Joseph Yuen Chit Woo (two years and nine months) Martin Howlett (30 months) Timothy Haywood (two years) Vernon Cosker (12 months) and Mark Lane (six months).

A statement said:

Following recent press comment Vodafone Group Plc confirms it has made an approach to AirTouch Communications regarding a possible merger. There can be no assurance that any agreement can or will be reached.

The City went into a frenzy on the news marking Vodafones shares to an all-time high of 11.20 (at time of writing).

The share price had already powered through the 10 barrier on news of Vodafones 933000 net new connections for the fourth quarter.

Rumours about Vodafone and Air- Touch getting together have been doing the rounds for years.

Earlier talks apparently broke down over how AirTouchs domestic and international business would be handled.