Staff Reporter

Chris Page of Kidderminster dealership Premier Communications claims Orange has approached many of his customers directly offering unbeatable deals as long as they buy direct. Page says he is sick and tired of it and claims that Orange has become more active in doing this over the past few months.

Is Orange trying to cut out the dealer by offering customers deals that we cant match? In one instance it called a customer directly offering them a free Nokia 7250i handset upgrade and 50 cashback.

The best deal we could offer was 149.95. Not even our nearest Carphone Warehouse branch could match Oranges deal. My customers tell me they will only do business with me if I can match Oranges deal. Im losing business as a result.

There doesnt appear to be a way of contacting Orange to see if it will allow me to price match the deal. Nearly all of my customers are business customers who will always look for the best savings.

I know Orange has been doing this for years. But Im worried because the problem has grown over the last couple of months. The distributors dont appear to be able to do anything because the problem is affecting so many other dealers. But they sent out a newsletter warning us to be aware of the networks actions.

It is not the first time that Orange has faced this charge. In 2002 a number of dealers complained about the networks upgrade policy though Orange has maintained it does not actively poach dealers customers.

At the time of going to press no one at Orange was available for comment.

The company currently employs around 600 call-centre staff at its Acton headquarters in west London and has already taken on around 120 staff at the new facility in Cheshire.

The Carphone Warehouse purchased the 60000 square foot facility with the aim of boosting the numbers of its call centre staff by 200 by the summer.

The two-storey building is also designed to house around 120 Opal Telecom and talktalk staff who are being moved across from their existing premises in Irlam Manchester as the site had no more room for expansion.

A Carphone Warehouse spokesperson said the facility was needed to handle the huge growth in customers the chain had experienced over the past couple of years.

We have gone from managing 300000 customers to one million customers in a short period of time. It was necessary to expand our call centre staff to service this larger customer base he said.

The location chosen due to its close proximity to the M62/M6 and Opal premises in Manchester has been fitted out with a gym and subsidised cafe.

The centre was opened by Ofcoms new CEO Stephen Carter.

The software is aimed at local authorities planning organisations. telecoms companies and other organisations that need to access the environmental impact of radio communication antennas.

It can also assess emissions from pagers and two-way radio transmitters.

Walker joined Sagem earlier this month after Ora decided not to renew his contract a year ago.

Walker joined Ora from Banner in August 2001 after being made redundant when European Telecom purchased Banner.

He remained at Ora through its administration in November 2001 and subsequent purchase by Acson in February 2002.

The service will be branded Yours with the strap line Yours to do business with.

Currently Yours will only be offered through Your Communications fixed-line resellers though it may well be opened up to select independent dealers.

The customer proposition includes a mid-level business phone for under 50 connected to a rebranded T-Mobile. Yours boasts a simple unbundled tariff and a range of useful services included from day one.

Your Assistant is a virtual PA there is also conference calling and every number is also an e-mail address. Billing is by e-mail and there is online account management.

Resellers will earn modestly up front but ongoing revenues are promised to be significant. The virtual network will be made available to a limited number of partners who demonstrate the necessary expertise credentials and commitment.

Your Communications director of marketing and mobile service Paul Lawton told Mobile News:

Yours is more than a punt but it is peripheral to Your Communications business plan. Id hate for people to think this is a last-ditch attempt for us to win more market share. Even if Yours fails entirely none of the wheels are going to come off Your Communications.

We are not going to go out and bill ourselves as being the UKs sixth seventh or eighth network. Were not hung up about calling ourselves a network – that wont make people connect with us. They are going to connect with us because we have gone to more trouble to make sure we are delivering an innovative service no matter what it is called.

(see full story P24)

Affinity Wireless is a subsidiary of Affinity Internet Holdings. It went into receivership two weeks ago.

Following the appointment of Kroll as administrator the mobile side of the business was sold to the two networks and the High Wycombe service provider while the fixed-line business was sold to Impelo Ltd.

Vodafone paid an undisclosed sum to secure the 95000 pre-pay and 5000 contract customers that Affinity had on Vodafone.

A spokesperson for the network said: Vodafone will honour the credits currently held by the former Affinity pre-pay customers and the customers will now be administered in-house. The contract customers will be managed in-house for an assessment period of four months during which Vodafone will seek appropriate long-term solutions for them.

O2 announced it paid an undisclosed sum to the administrators for the right to contact the 2700 O2 customers who had a contract through Affinity.

The network subsequently contacted the customers via SMS to advise them to call O2 to sort out their situation.

Generation Telecom was unavailable for comment at time of going to press.

Customs is refusing to repay substantial amounts of VAT owed to traders in perceived high-risk industry sectors in an attempt to halt missing trader fraud estimated to cost 2.75 billion a year.

Customs are desperate to stem the haemorrhage of public revenue. They are unable to catch the criminals directly but seem intent to end the fraud even if it means penalising legitimate traders said Dennis Knowles VAT partner at Deloitte & Touche.

The scam takes place where the trader disappears without paying VAT due to Customs.

This missing trader fraud is now seen as a greater threat than alcohol or tobacco smuggling. Sophisticated fraudsters send the goods round a loop of companies in the UK and Europe with the goods sometimes being sold by the same companies hundreds of times in a scam known as carousel fraud.

Customs latest tactic which began in June last year is to refuse to repay VAT due to companies within risk industry sectors until each transaction in a series has been proved to be genuine. This can take many months.

If Customs is not satisfied that all of the transactions are genuine it refuses to repay VAT to legitimate businesses that either sell the goods within their own legitimate business or export the goods and qualify for a VAT repayment.

Even where traders have complied in full with Customs requirements repayments have still sometimes been withheld pointed out Deloitte & Touche.

T-Mobile announced that it had secured MMS interconnect with Orange saying an agreement with Vodafone would be announced shortly.

Orange said it has full MMS interconnect with the other GSM networks. That leaves Vodafone and T-Mobile as the only networks without full MMS interconnect. Despite the claims that MMS interconnect is available however none of the GSM operators has yet announced an MMS interconnect with new 3G operator 3.

An Orange spokesperson said Orange didnt have an MMS interconnect agreement with 3 as it had not been able to obtain 3 handsets for interoperability testing.

The networks claim that MMS interconnect will increase sales and usage of MMS handsets.

O2 managing director David McGlade said: Enabling customers to send and receive media messages across the different networks is one of the most critical steps towards widespread MMS adoption.

However a spokesperson admitted that some or all of the stores could be closed in order to turn its ailing German operation into profit.

We have said we will make the German operation profitable by the end of the year. We intend and hope to keep the stores open a spokesperson told Mobile News.

We have not announced any closures yet. However it is an option we may have to consider if we havent turned into profit by the end of the financial year.

The Carphone Warehouses financial year ended on March 30 but executives wont be announcing the final figures until June.

The future of The Carphone Warehouses German operation has been in the balance since the company reported last year that the market in Germany had proved to be very challenging with an increase in losses.

The company said losses in Germany and Belgium would not be permitted beyond the end of the financial year just ended.

A number of the companys stores were closed to reduce losses but in November CPW admitted more work needed to be done to stem the losses.

Ian Robinson of O2 distributor MoCo Cell Link said orders for O2 SIM cards rose 20 per cent. Unique Distribution joint-managing director Angus Dawe said O2 business was surprisingly strong.

John Drinkwater managing director of new O2 distributor European Telecom said he had seen a moderate increase in demand. He expected more as dealers worked out the advantages.

The decision to delay the introduction of cuts was taken to continue to encourage business connections.

For many companies April is the end of the year and it was thought better to introduce the cuts in time for the start of the new financial year said the network.

O2 was going to join Vodafone Orange and T-Mobile in cutting 40 from its commission payments following the Competition Commissions investigation into termination charges. But cuts of 40 will not be introduced until next month.

Ironically O2 was the most vocal of the opponents of the Competition Commissions findings and had warned that it would have to cut subsidies and delay its roll-out of 3G services.