Staff Reporter

Meteors parent Western Wireless said the company had received a number of offers from a variety of financial and strategic partners for its International asset portfolio but would not comment directly on specific territories.

Western Wireless is in the process of being taken over by Alltel which prefers to keep its interests US-centred. Deutsche Bank has been retained by Western Wireless to oversee the sale.

Early indications are that a deal to sell Meteor to the highest bidder could be concluded by the end of June 2005.

Current valuations suggest that to be successful a price tag of at least 206m to 275m will need to be on the table.

Meteor currently has more than 11 per cent of the Irish market with 376600 customers at the end of March.

Former monopoly telco

Eircom has long coveted the possibility of returning to the mobile arena after selling off its mobile arm Eircell to Vodafone in 2001 for IR 3.3bn.

There was also a a no-compete clause preventing Eircom from re-entering the mobile business.

But this clause has now expired and the company recently appointed Goodbody Stockbrokers and Morgan Stanley for advice on its potential bid for Meteor.

Peter Lynch Eircoms chief financial officer is said to be leading takeover discussions which could result in an offer in excess of EUR350m for the wireless network.

This will not be a one- horse race. There has also been an expression of interest from Irish entrepreneur Denis OBrien.

Although there has been no official confirmation OBrien is unlikely to miss any opportunity to return to the auld sod having created and disposed of Esat Digifone (now known as O2 Ireland) in 2000 after selling EastDigifone to BT for 2bn.

He is currently riding a wave in the Caribbean controlling the Digicel group.

Dan Cuffley UK & Ireland director of retail distribution and MVNOs at Motorola said: We are highly selective in whom we appoint and we set the strictest criteria.

Avenir has an unassailable track record in its management delivery and customer service. It has achieved regular success in working with major manufacturers to bring new products to market and in sustaining sales growth. We are proud to welcome them as an official distributor.

Avenirs Managing Director Ishai Novick told Mobile News that becoming the fifth official Motorola distributor in the UK was an enormous breakthrough.

This is a major coup for Avenirs dealers giving them access to a high quality advanced range of products.

The appointment reflects a key Avenir objective of continually striving to find further ways of adding value to our customer promise by developing additional markets and offering new products and services.

Avenir Telecom UK posted an increase in sales of 67 per cent during the second half of last year.

It is the leading subsidiary within the international Avenir Telecom Group headquartered in France.

The Group which achieved a net profit growth of 60 per cent to 9.2m during the same period has distribution contracts worldwide with most of the major manufacturers.

The deal with Motorola in the UK says Novick is part of a move to extend this strategy into the Groups subsidiary companies.

Added to that up to 1m new users have been added in the last six months.

BlackBerry took five years to get 1m subscribers which it achieved in February 2004. This doubled in less than 10 months reaching the 2m subscribers in November 2004.

Jim Balsillie RIM chairman and co-CEO says the surge demonstrates the continuing momentum and expanding market opportunity for RIM and its partners.

Its an exciting time as BlackBerry continues to enjoy enormous success and rapid growth around the world he says.

With over 50000 retail points of presence accelerated geographic expansion and the anticipated addition of 100 new carriers in 2005 we are scaling our operations for the 5m and 10m subscriber milestones.

The Vodafone Simply will be free on contract and 80 on pre-pay and will be made available through Vodafone stores the web and Asda.

The design of the new Sagem-made handset resulted after research showed that many people over the age of 35 wanted a simple phone.

Nick Reid chief commercial officer of Vodafones consumer business unit said: The product was two years in the making. It is specifically designed for customers over 35 years. There are 27m people in this group in the UK. Many want just voice and text. They like mobile phones but they just cant use them easily. They are not interested in complexity.

The Vodafone-branded device has five buttons each dedicated to a single task. A home button takes the user back to the start screen. A contacts button accesses names and numbers. A messaging button links to an inbox that gathers voice and text messages. A slide button provides volume control. A hold button locks the keypad.

The new design has a large high-resolution screen and a big keypad. A colour screen shows network signal battery life volume of the ring tone is and the users number.

A light flashes to signal the arrival of text or voice messages. The theory is that it resembles the functionality of fixed line answer-phones.

Said Reid: Handset manufacturing is subject to extreme complexity and is always moving beyond what this age group wants. Other operators are sticking with generic handsets. People of 55 and over are still using fixed line because they are intimidated by mobile. We aim to penetrate further into that age group.

Vodafone will advertise in Golf Monthly Radio Times and Womens Weekly.

Thomas had resigned from the PNC Telecom board on 24 June 2004. After that Nigel Etherington and Jeff Pack remained on the board until shareholders called an EGM on 24 August 2004 and assumed control.

District judge Rutherford ruled that a payment of 55900 was made to Thomas incorrectly on his resignation.

Thomas said: I got the company out of administration and sorted out a number of contingent liabilities. I had arranged for PNC to be reversed into Etheringtons frozen food company which would have transformed the business. When that was vetoed I resigned.

There was a technicality in the documentation. The judge ruled that the documentation was incorrect and I have paid the money back. That is the end of it.

Joe Case who holds a 26 per cent share of PNC Telecom alleges that he discovered a shortfall of 940000 in the company accounts when he took control on 24 August. Case claims that he is pursuing an action against all three former directors for 500000.

Said Case: PNC Telecom was a shell company. When I took over the board of PNC its funds had diminished from 1.04m to 100000. A payment of 55900 has been paid back plus costs. Now PNC Telecom is continuing its claim for the balance of approximately 500000. Our intention is to get that money back into the company for the shareholders.

Thomas responded by saying: Joe Case has made lots of claims. The only one that has held water is the one that went through the Bath County Court. I havent seen any official documentation about this claim for 500000 and if I do I will look at it.

Brewer is said to have decided to call it a day when Harris Jones Cable and Wirelesss head of internationaloperations appointed ex-Phones 4U marketing manager Paul Hamburger as commercial director for the Caribbean and made him Brewers boss. Hamburger is now based in Miami.

Brewer is believed to be remaining in his Barbados home on gardening leave for the next six months.

Brewer knew Hamburger when he was running Vodafones sales and distribution. Phones4U was one of Vodafones biggest customers.

Shortly after Brewer arrived in the Caribbean just over a year ago the region was hit by the biggest hurricane in years which decimated the region.

Brewers task was then to oversee the rebuilding of the shattered network infrastructure.

The facility which will open in the autumn will be based in Glasgows Skypark business complex at Finnieston creating 1500 jobs for local people.

O2 says it will invest the cash over the next two years.

In addition the Scottish Executive has announced that it will further support the project with an offer of Regional Selective Assistance worth around 7m.

Francesca Rea general manager Customer Service for O2 UK said:

This is a major vote of confidence in our business and the UK market. This is now the most competitive mobile phone market in Europe.

That means great value for consumers and huge choice.

We believe we can have more customers choosing O2 by investing in the people and resources to deliver an overall experience that customers will find superior.

Welcoming the announcement deputy first minister Jim Wallace said: This is a significant announcement for Scotland and a ringing endorsement of what we can offer to companies across the world.

Scotland is a first class location to do business with a reputation for offering a skilled and motivated workforce.

The new Customer Service centre and 1500 new jobs are part of O2s wider plans to strengthen customer loyalty. O2 has already announced that it will be hiring an additional 500 people as it expands its base of UK retail stores.

The company has 26 retail stores in Scotland which will increase to 30 over the next six months. Recruitment for the new customer service centre will start within the next few weeks.

Previously O2s regional sales manager for the north-east Jackson will be responsible for the development of Airphones sales operation which encompasses mobile fixed-line and data with a focus primarily on the small and medium-sized business market.

Airphones total communications capability coupled with a fantastic customer service support operation particularly excites me said Jackson.

Our smaller business customers are able to benefit from the expertise we have gained from managing our larger customers such as Powergen Adidas and Virgin Atlantic.

Jacksons earlier experience includes two years managing key independents as senior business development manager with the Caudwell Group and five years as field sales manager with Orange.

Airphone Group managing director John Forde said that the appointment is part of a major expansion drive by Airphone Telecom that will see the sales division being built up.

Phil brings an invaluable first-class range of knowledge and experience he says. The small to medium corporate sector is a rapidly growing part of our business and Phil is already recruiting additional sales team members.

The network is slashing the price to send images to 20p launching a new online imaging site and exclusively offering the two megapixel Sony Ericsson D750i. The price cut will run throughout the summer and applies to messages sent both here and abroad.

T-Mobile has also teamed up with Kodak to launch the T-Mobile Kodak Mobile service where customers can store edit share and print their photographs.

First time users of the T-Mobile Kodak Mobile service will receive unlimited storage 10 free prints and two free wallpapers. T-Mobile customers can simply send an MMS to 777 to upload their pictures and get started on the service.

And in a triple whammy the network is exclusively offering the Sony Ericsson D750i two megapixel camera phone in its shops from June 1st.

They claim the handset is the lightest 2-mega pixel camera phone to hit the market and offers the largest memory thanks to its 38MB internal memory and the 64MB Memory Stick Pro.

The D750i comes equipped with technical features common in stand-alone digital cameras such as auto focus 4x digital zoom preflash with red-eye reduction intuitive digital still camera user interface and accessories such as a camera flash plus an MP3 player and FM radio.

The usage of mobiles for imaging is really building up said Deborah Porton picture messaging proposition manager for T-Mobile.

Most phones that people buy are cameraphones – what we are doing here is a case of putting all the elements together to make imaging easy for our customers.

Phil Chapman Director of Marketing T-Mobile UK added:

T-Mobile is unleashing the full capabilities of the picture-message experience by making the service in-expensive improving the quality of pictures by launching our first 2- mega pixel phone and by providing our customers with the ability to store edit share and print their photographs.

ROK will bundle airtime and Emblaze handsets together with pre-loaded MMC cards containing music video games and animations.

The MVNO will be branded under the name of a partner as yet unconfirmed and initially sold online with roll-out to high street retailers scheduled for 2006.

ROK marketing director Bruce Renny said:

The Emblaze handsets will carry the MVNO brand name. We will also bundle ROK mobile content on to MMC cards to be sold with the handsets.

The phone becomes not just a music player but a portable DVD player. We will be very competitive in terms of pricing. It will start as an online proposition with online top-ups and roll out more widely next year. It is about fun performance and affordability.

Renny reckons that up to 14 hours of music and video content can be stored on a 1GB MMC card.

ROK is aiming for an estimated 250000 customer base within 12 months and a million within three years.

Emblaze Mobile CEO Laurence Alexander said: We are excited to be working with such a forward-thinking and energetic company as ROK. We work with our customers to develop devices that will actually make people want to use the phone for more than just calls and SMS.

Emblaze last week announced a six-fold increase in revenues in 2004 compared with 2003 and extimated that it would double revenues in 2005 to $120 million ( 63.4 million) largely on the back of the consumer launch of its mobile proposition.

An Emblaze Mobile spokesperson said: We will be producing more and selling more into operators. A consumer launch will happen in July. It will be a big push for us.

Emblaze has expanded its international position with headquarters in London incorporating marketing sales and management.

The design and manufacturing house in Korea provides volume manufacturing while Israel handles software R&D and application and content development.