We are on a big dealer recruitment drive said European Telecom network services director Frank Masson.
Since its takeover by Israeli handset manufacturer Emblaze Mobile late last year Masson said European Telecom s armoury is much bigger now. We feel inclined to tell more dealers about it. I intend to hit the high street and everyone in it to canvass for more dealers. We are using our own UK-based call centre and we ve added an Indian call centre to take the overspill. We want to get the message across.
But Matt Chambers of The Phone Chamber in Edenbridge said:
I ve had six phone calls this week from European Telecom sales reps based in India rattling off a script and trying to sell me a dealer pack.
You ve got to be suspicious of any company that uses an offshore call centre he said. There is a lot of trust in that relationship. ET should phone from home not from abroad.
Since the Emblaze takeover European Telecom has started to flesh out its new BT account and has just begun to offer accessories via subsidiary distributor Comm Sense which it acquired in February 2005.
We are just now ready to go to market to sell accessories so that is another step forward said Masson.
We can now offer a full range of accessories including PDAs and satnav. The BT deal means we can sell broadband and DECT phones as well. That is another reason to contact dealers to tell them about it.
European Telecom has also appointed Matt Ogden as head of network business. Ogden spent 14 years at Nokia as national account manager on The Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U.
It is a big appointment for us said Masson. Matt has a lot of experience.

The store is understood to span 5000 square feet and could provide a springboard for the three to expand further into out-of-town sites together according to trade paper Retail Week.
Rent for the store thought to go under the internal code name of Electric City is understood to be shared equally between the three collaborators although each has its own store staff in separate branded areas.
A Jessops spokesman confirmed that its section will not be stocking mobile phones to avoid the danger of a clash with The Carphone Warehouse. Jessops signed a two-year deal with Dextra in August last year.
Carphone has declined to comment on the superstore project.

Hugh Symons says it is now the first distributor to offer all six networks to its dealer network. The contracts will be initially offered to Hugh Symons 75 preferred Unity Partnership dealers. Other Hugh Symons dealers will be handed the Virgin product a matter of weeks later according to business manager Bob Sweetlove.
This is clear evidence of how the Carphone Warehouse acquisition is allowing us to start to lead the market he said. We expect to roll it out quite quickly probably by March. We ll have to because everyone is going to be knocking on our door for it.
The deal is the first product since CPW bought the distributor in December. The chain is the only non-Virgin retailer to offer Virgin Mobile contracts in all its stores. The Link and Boots have only limited availability.
It s a very exciting time for Virgin Mobile to move into independent mobile retailers said Virgin Mobile sales and marketing director Graeme Hutchinson.
Following our initial contract launch with The Carphone Warehouse this next step with Hugh Symons is a natural progression he said. Our contract proposition is proving popular and we are looking to widen distribution even further over the next few months to more dealers and other outlets.
Rival distributors appear unsurprised by the announcement given the relationship between Hugh Symons and Carphone Warehouse. Indeed some welcomed the prospect of Virgin Pay Monthly contracts being made available to their own customers.
It would be something to look at said a spokesman for Fone Logistics. Virgin is a very strong brand. We d like to know what sort of deal Hugh Symons was given and how level the playing field is between them and us.

This follows the announcement by Motorola of a dual-card StarTAC which can take a cash card as well as a SIM card (Mobile News November 2).

From early next year says Mondex customers will be able to withdraw money from their bank accounts onto their Mondex cash cards by inserting them into the phones smart card slot obtaining cash wherever there is GSM coverage.

This technology will help mobile e-commerce realise its full potential. People want access to their money anytime anywhere. Mondex e-cash with GSM mobility will make this a reality said Mondex chief technology officer Peter Hill.

The virtual network saw its total active customer base increase by 12 per cent taking its total number of subscribers to 4346000. But churn levels marginally increased from 26.9 per cent to 27.5 per cent.
Virgin saw its service revenue up 20.3 per cent on Q3 of last year with well over half of the growth being generated from the pre-pay segment. On a 12 month rolling basis blended ARPU rose to 123 an increase of 2 per customer from 121 at the end of September 2005.
Virgin Mobile chief executive Tom Alexander said he was delighted with what he described as a strong set of results .
Our top-line service revenue growth continues to be industry leading with our highest year-on-year growth for more than 12 months he said.
Our continuing strategy of attracting high quality pre-pay customers fuelled our growth during the quarter.
Alexander said Virgin s entry into the contract market gathered pace during the Q4 with the number of distribution outlets doubling and the launch of its contract advertising featuring Kate Moss.
We will continue to roll out our contract proposition to further outlets over the next quarter with additional expansion planned for FY2007 he added.
We begin 2006 in a strong position with industry-leading revenue growth rising ARPU and a growing customer base and therefore look with confidence to the future.
But Alexander remained tight-lipped about the proposed buyout of Virgin Mobile by NTL. Our discussions about a potential offer are ongoing and we will make further announcements about these in due course he said.

Genesis says there has been a 30 per cent increase in mobile phone usage among its business customers in the past year since it offered a new range of services.

These include Cellnets web-based service Genie SMS answering service Call Back and Dictation Line which enables customers to dictate a message which is transcribed and sent as an SMS.

We have seen a major increase in mobile phone traffic to to a dramatic awareness among our subscribers of the additional services and benefits that mobile phone usage can bring on efficiency claim- ed Genesis managing director

Ian Blackhurst.

Initially we had a hard job in persuading our customers that a mobile phone was more than just a means to make or receive a telephone call. Many of our customers only used their phones to receive calls and seemed nervous of the advanced technology that their handsets offered. Genesis expects there will be 16 million users in the UK by the end of this year.

This follows an instance when a trial witness received a threatening mobile phone call from an inmate in Mount Joy prison.

Now another mobile has been discovered in Portlaoise jail Irelands highest security prison. It was detected by a security scanner after being dumped in a rubbish bin as a search of cells was being carried out.

This is one of the inferences from a Manpower Survey of Employment Prospects conducted among 2195 employers from most of the countrys top 100 companies.

Employers were asked if they intended to increase decrease or maintain their staffing levels for the three months to the end of March.

Around 24 per cent of employers in the telecoms industry said they expected to increase levels. Only five per cent thought they may have to cut back.

But although this is the most optimistic forecast of staffing levels of the entire survey and is 19 points above the national average it is still nine percentage points down in the same quarter for last year.

Employment prospects are worse for people in the service sector where most employers said they expected to be reducing staffing levels.

The positive balance of 19 per centage points reflects the strength of the telecoms industry said a Manpower spokesperson.

The new outlets are in Liverpool (St Johns Shopping Centre) Hanley (The Potteries). Hammersmith (The Broadway Centre) Southampton (Bar Street) and Maidenhead (High Street).

The company opened 40 stores last year alone. The Mobile Phone Store started trading in 1993.

1999 is set to be equally as eventful. Our expansion is set to continue into new regions said marketing manager Sarah Burns.

In an effort to find out which toad was supplying accessories to Asda we telephoned our Huddersfield branch. The conversation with customer services went something like this:

Me: Have you got a battery for a Philips phone and can you tell me the make as Ive been told that the Philips battery is the best?

Asda: It will be Cellnet who make them. You do know they are re-chargeable?

Me: Yes I do know they are rechargeable. I want a spare and I want Philips own battery.

Asda: Apparently we sell all sorts of accessories.

They could not find a manager and to satisfy my enquiry they took a battery off a Philips phone and proudly announced it said Philips on it.

Me: Yes it would wouldnt it. Thats what it says on my Philips phone battery.

Asda: Er … we can get the manager to ring you back.

I dont know about other dealers but we have no intention of competing against Asda. In our show room the U phone is 99.99 and we have a waiting list of customers happy to pay 99.99. The phones are snapped up as soon as they are delivered and accessories remain the same price as always.

As if it is not bad enough we get Asda/Tesco/Woolworths/Tandy/Comet etc customers in our show room asking how the phones and the voucher system works.

If I help these customers they will come back to me when they want a proper deal.

We can see Asda returning a lot of faulty equipment due to customer abuse. And of course the phones change so quickly stock soon becomes obsolete. We write our old stock off. Asda will want sale or return or a full credit.

Then of course the time will come when Asda decides it has had enough of mobile phones and accessories then … whoops … the best of British to you whoever you are.

If you are interested to know who the accessory supplier to Asda is we are actually visiting Asda to see for ourselves. They seem unable to provide simple answers to simple questions.

Colin and Gale Alexander

Talk 2 Us Communications

Elland

West Yorkshire

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