Staff Reporter

Entries may be made from this week using the Entry Form attached to this issue of Mobile News. Call 0500 002 275 for extra copies.

The Mobile News Awards will be presented at a gala dinner dance at the Hilton on Park Lane on March 27 2003 attended by more than 1100 guests and sponsored by O2 Orange Virgin Mobile and Vodafone.

His replacement will be Stewart Sherriff who is currently senior vice-president of Western Wireless International which is the major shareholder in Meteor.

Meteor chairman and WWI president Brad Horwitz said:

Davids experience in running mobile companies in the UK and Australia meant that he was well suited for the start-up nature of Meteors market entry.

Meteor now has over 82 per cent population coverage and the new ODTR figures show we have reached four per cent market share which is a considerable achievement in a very challenging environment.

David successfully completed the challenges that we set for him and we wish him well in his (Cont P2) future endeavours.

But Sims formerly with Orbitel and Vodafone said he resigned under duress.

I was placed in a position where I had a gun at my head. I had to face the possibility of a year of legal action or step aside. Difficulties arose in the second year. It was like being in charge of a football team with regular demands from the board that I should sell off my key players. When those players were responsible for your marketing strategies and network roll-out you can appreciate how our future plans could be seriously compromised he said.

Sheriff has been with WWI for over 14 years as technical director overseeing the companys interests in Austria Slovenia Iceland Ivory Coast Bolivia Georgia Croatia Ghana and Haiti. An industry insider hinted that with WWI no longer bidding for new networks it was Sherriffs job that was facing extinction.

Sims enforced departure simply allowed the company to make necessary cost savings while juggling a few chairs in the boardroom. Speculation has been rife that WWI wishes to sell its investment.

Sims acknowledged this in an earlier interview with Mobile News saying only if the price was right.

The decision not to pursue a 3G licence application was seen as being caught between a rock and a hard place.

The licence fee of 114.1 million over 15 years would be a substantial drain especially for a network still to recover its 2G network build and launch costs.

Yet without an ability to offer 3G its attraction as a future investment would be greatly diminished.

Mobile News has learned that over the coming months Samsung will be holding a number of roadshows across the country at which it plans to meet independent dealers and explain its plans in greater detail.

According to an industry source Samsung is looking to create a direct relationship with the independent dealer while still working through the existing distributor channels.

Samsung general manager Mark Mitchinson has spoken on numerous occasions about taking relations between the manufacturer and the dealer channel to another level and the new scheme is believed to have been designed by Mitchinson himself.

The scheme is set to get an extensive roll-out and will involve improved training in-store merchandising and information to ensure that dealers are better equipped to sell Samsung products. It also has the backing of Samsungs current distributors.

With Samsungs MMS package not expected to launch until the start of 2003 the company is said to be planning to use the time between now and then to educate the dealer channel on how its new products will work. It is also understood that as part of the scheme dealers will have the opportunity to become accredited by Samsung although this will not involve any direct trading with the manufacturer.

Kondor already supplies The Link Carphone Warehouse and Vodafone retail outlets with accessories but the deal is the first time the company has put accessories into a high-footfall store outside the mobile phone retail sector.

The Anglo base was split between small business and corporates and those being managed under a virtual service provider (VSP) arrangement. Generation Telecom has taken the small business and corporate customers.

The acquisition fits into our strategy very well. We heard there was an opportunity and reacted quickly. We thought the corporate and SME base would complement our base said Generation Telecom managing director Keith Westcott.

Kroll Buchler Philips receiver Andrew Pepper told Mobile News it is unlikely that Anglo Communications which went into receivership on August 29 will now be sold as a going concern.

Pepper says it is too early to determine the precise cause of Anglos collapse. He blamed the failure on Anglos slowness in collecting debts from its customers causing cashflow problems.

Anglo recently lost 250000 (Mobile News May 27) when one of its Virtual Service Providers (VSPSs) went into receivership. (Cont P2)

Telecom South MD Clive Thomas agreed to let Anglo take over the Vodafone customer base which was connected through Anglo.

However sources close to Anglo say that the company would only have benefited from the deal some six or seven months down the line.

Anglo parent company Recall group has had its shares on the Ofex market suspended as a result of the problems and is under threat of collapse due to the fact that Anglo was the mainstay of its business.

The collapse of Anglo is a blow to Recall which had only recently acquired a licence to sell Thuraya satellite phones and services.

However it is understood that Recall could take legal action against its finance company Bibby Factors due to the manner in which it called in the receivers. Anglo managing director Jeremy Bartholomew – White could not confirm that legal action had been served against Bibby.

However he did tell Mobile News:

It is true our parent company is unhappy with the treatment by Bibby Factors.

Bibby Factors declined to comment.

The shutdowns are said to be due to the slowdown in the retail market. Ten staff were affected but five have been found positions elsewhere in the company.

According to Digital Phone managing director Phil Rider the closure of the stores marks a refocusing towards the business community.

Like most dealers we have experienced a 40 per cent decline in new acquisitions over the past year or so. Being the sponsors of Norwich FC we have a high profile in the area and we are trying to get as much benefit as possible out of that.

Businesses know that we are a trustworthy firm and that if they work with us they are keeping money in the region. There are no other major independent business retailers in the area and we want to take full advantage of that. (Cont P2)

As part of Digital Phones links with Norwich FC it has seminar facilities at the football clubs Carrow Road ground and is set to hold the largest-ever business seminar in the area this week.

The future for independent retailers in the area is very difficult says Rider. All the networks have stores in the area as well as Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U. For one of our stores we had a Vodafone network store 100 yards down the road a Phones 4U store 50 yards past that and a Carphone Warehouse just next to that.

Our plan had been to open stores in the areas where these guys werent which are the small market towns. But these wont sustain the stores.

We could have kept the stores open without them losing any money but they wouldnt have been profit-making. So what would be the point?

What we now have to do is concentrate on the SMEs and ensure we provide them with excellent knowledgeable advice.

Of Digital Phones 20 stores 18 were Vodafone-branded and two Orange-branded stores. Digital Phone also offers O2 and T-Mobile direct.

The company acquired three Norwich Phone & Fax stores in November 2000 and six Retail Telecom stores in April 2001. The seven store closures are in Bury St. Edmunds Gorleston Lowestoft St Neots Swaffham Thetford and Great Yarmouth.

The North East dealer and distributor is believed to owe T-Mobile around 6 million.

We have got cashflow problems. But it is not a clawback issue. We are working with T-Mobile to find a solution and we expect to have an answer shortly Cityphone boss Barry Donaghey told Mobile News.

We are undergoing a massive restructuring to cut overheads and streamline the business. There are no disputes with T-Mobile. We became aware of the problems at the beginning of this month. We have time to sort things out.

Donaghey said Cityphones problems were due to a decline in customer demand for mobile phones and reduced network commissions.

He admitted Cityphone over- extended itself by (Cont P2) purchasing too many shops including 30 WAP Store outlets it purchased for 700000 in January.

The shops were the biggest problem. We have now closed 12 stores and franchised over 50 of the remaining stores.

The franchised stores are profitable as is the distribution business he said.

Ironically Donaghey blamed the demise of the WAP Store for the same reasons he told Mobile News in January when he said of Wap Store founder Graham Cornhill that he overstretched himself at the wrong time.

T-Mobile head of sales and distribution Christina Meade was unavailable for comment.

T-Mobile head of external affairs Patrick Barrow said:

It wouldnt be fair for us to comment on another companys financial troubles.

The winding up order was incorrectly served against Fonekit instead of Sell-line Corporation (trading as Fonekit).

The mistake occurred because Fonekit Ltd and Sell-line (trading as Fonekit) are both based in Eastbourne.

We served a winding up order against Fonekit. We assumed the company was Fonekit Ltd because the name Fonekit appears on all its invoices. We have now discovered the company we have been dealing with is Sell-line (trading as Fonekit) and is not Fonekit Ltd said Mobileshop.com boss Grenville Reeves.

We are in dispute with Sell-line Corporation (trading as Fonekit) over an unpaid invoice. We received a cheque for 7000 which bounced. We will be taking action against the company.

Sell-line financial controller Peter Scheldt agrees that there is a dispute but says it could easily have been avoided.

There is a commercial dispute between Mobileshop.com (Cont P2) and us. Mobileshop.com has owed us 400 to 500 for a year. We have been waiting for them to confirm we can offset this against what we owe them. This has been agreed. But we have not received the confirmation.

Scheldt said the cheque paid to Mobileshop.com bounced because the company changed bankers:

Mobileshop.com insisted we send them a cheque. We explained it would not clear as we were changing banks. We sent the cheque just to confirm the balance owed. We wanted to wait until we had cleared funds.

This has now occurred. The invoice can now be paid.

Mobileshop.com was foolish to insist on us sending a cheque. I am aware a winding up order has been served against a company called Fonekit Ltd which has no direct connection to us. I suspect it will be seeking some redress againstMobileshop.com concluded Scheldt.

AnP marketing director Bill Mann is in negotiations to appoint a UK distributor.

However he would not say whether any UK operators are likely to take the handsets into their product range.

We will appoint a UK (Cont P2) distributor soon. We only intend to appoint one distributor in the UK.

The first handset will start shipping at the end of August. We intend to attack the market on price Mann told Mobile News.

The first Daewoo handset to be launched will be a dual-screen flip-phone similar in design to Samsungs A300.

The DW 600 is a dual-band GSM 900/1800 handset with built-in organiser full graphical display 300-name/number phonebook WAP and a lithium Ion battery.

A second handset with GPRS will launch before Christmas. Daewoo intends to bring out a colour handset in the first quarter next year.

The incident came shortly after Ali Khan resigned as a TAP director (Mobile News August 5).

Police arrested Ali Khan on August 20 at TAPs premises as he arrived to attend an Extraordinary General Meeting. He was taken to Kingston Police station and questioned about alleged threats against Nasa Khan and members of his family.

Ali Khan was later released without charge on police bail pending further investigations.

He denies the allegations saying:

Police told me that they had received a complaint from Nasa Khan that I was making threats against him and his family.

The allegation made is completely unsubstantiated and without foundation. On August 20 I went to the head office of The Accessory People PLC to attend an EGM of the company.

I was first greeted by two security staff and then escorted into a musty and unclean side room. Five high-ranking police officers then bundled me into a police car that raced off at high speed to Kingston Police station.

I was informed much to my disbelief that I was being (Cont P2) arrested on suspicion of threatening the life of Nasa Khan and various members of his family.

After a short interview I was released without charge to the obvious embarrassment of the arresting officers. I intend to reconvene the EGM in the near future hopefully without further incident. My solicitor is handling all further matters.

TAP managing director Bav Majithia issued a statement saying:

We will not tolerate this kind of behaviour towards any TAP board members.

The board are in full support of any criminal action which may be taken against Ali Khan.

At the time of going to press no details of the alleged threats were available. TAP has not commented on the fact that Ali Khan was released on police bail without charge.

Ali Khan claims he has tried to speak to Nasa Khan to resolve the situation but claims that Nasa Khan is unapproachable.