Staff Reporter

The company has called in web-integration specialist Orbis to develop the system which will equip Virgin Mobile handsets with links to the Virgin Mobile e-commerce gateway.

The software being designed provides inline checking from validating a credit card through to authorising airtime and equipment payment.

E-commerce is an integral part of our service. The Orbis payment manager system allows us to offer customers a sales process which differentiates us from the other four existing phone networks said Virgin Mobile MD Tom Alexander.

Ackroyd was one of Oras original members of staff when the company was set up around 10 years ago by founder Malcolm Hanson.

He left Ora last month following a shake-up of executives by new sales head John McLuskie.

Also Fone Range production director Mehmet Ali Soylu has joined The Accessory People as its international sales and logistics director.

The contract includes the provision of 6000 mobile phones together with fully managed mobile data services for ICLs entire force of home-based Servicelink engineers.

Vodafone Corporate has equip-ped 1000 ICL Servicelink engineers with ICL-badged Nokia 9110 Communicator phones for two-way data and voice communication between ICLs host computer based at Stevenage and Servicelink engineers.

Job scheduling instructions and emergency job allocations are sent to the remote Servicelink engineers via SMS. On completion of the job the Servicelink engineer is able to update the ICL computer with job closing stock control updates and invoicing details.

To handle the volume of two-way data and SMS traffic between the ICL central host and the remote Servicelink engineers Vodafone installed fixed kilostream links from the Vodafone network into the ICL call centre site at Stevenage.

The centre will create 500 new jobs and will employ 1500 people. This brings to 4500 the total number of Orange employees in the region. It is the third Orange communications centre to be established in the North East. The network has spent over 28 million in customer communications centres in the last year alone. Orange says the centre is one of the most advanced centres in Europe.

The company will continue trading under the Motolec name and all 41 staff will be retained.

Motolec had a turnover last year of 4 million selling cell phones accessories car sat-nav equipment and car audio products from Nakamichi Alpine Kenwood Pioneer and Sony.

This is a very exciting acquisition on the road to making Chameleon the biggest UK installer of every kind of in-car equipment said Chameleon chief executive Phil Stanley.

Added group managing director Steve Sharratt:

Chameleon has acquired Motolec due to the synergy between its car audio business and NCFs specialisation in cell phone equipment. We plan to dramatically increase the number of outlets and our product range and add to our existing network of 160 engineers to provide a nationwide installation service.

The company says it expects to increase connections from the second quarter once the Nokia handset is relaunched and an improved version of the Motorola handset comes out this month.

Dolphin has reported a net loss for last year of $169.3 million compared to a loss of $53.8 million in 1998. The increase loss was mainly as a result of the construction of the UK and French network.

Dolphins first UK chief executive officer Ted Beddoes was replaced last November by One 2 One deputy managing director Steven Evans.

The Dolphin digital radio network covers 87 per cent of the UK population. The company has also built networks in France Belgium and Germany as part of its plan to offer seamless pan-European services to corporate users.

This brings the total number of Orange employees in the region to over 4500.

It is the third Orange communications centre to be established in the North East.

The network has spend over 28 million in customer communications centres in the last year alone. Orange says the North Tyneside customer communications centre is one of the most advanced centres in Europe.

Bob Fuller COO Orange said:

This new facility will be a centre of excellence for Orange customer services enhancing our ability to offer the best possible care. It also represents the considerable continuing investment made by Orange in its employees customers and local communities.

Scott-Crawford had appeared in February at Skipton Magistrates Court charged with attempting to obtain a pecuniary advantage by wrongly claiming his previous employer Kay Petty of Mobile Telecom in Harrogate was bankrupt.

The case has been dropped because there was not enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.

More than 10 companies who were illegally using the Ericsson brand were served with cease and desist letters as a part of the companys commitment to design and trademark protection.

Previous raids reduced the number of companies infringing on Ericssons design or trademark rights.

During CeBIT Ericsson issued approximately 30 cease and desist letters to more than 10 manufacturers who were illegally using the Ericsson brand on their products or infringing on Ericssons registered design rights. The German court issued three injunctions to prohibit exhibitors from showing and selling counterfeit products.

Ericsson says the action at CeBIT is partly made to protect the brand but also because counterfeit products often do not meet the manufacturers quality and safety standards making them suspect to malfunctions. In such cases Ericsson says it can not accept warranty claims.

We have seen clearly this year that previous efforts have paid off the number of companies exhibiting counterfeit products were considerably lower says Jan Ahrenbring vice president marketing and communications at Ericsson Mobile Communications.

The actions taken will be carefully evaluated and possible future legal actions will be considered.

The pupils were allegedly held at knifepoint on the Tube for part of their journey after a night out.

Keith Barber (19) is charged with robbing Alexander Lewis of an Ericsson phone Alexander Druttman of another mobile and Grant Chien of 15 in cash on January 28 on a train between Bayswater and Earls Court.