Staff Reporter

Compare it with game-playing on the N-Gage and there is no contest said a spokesperson for 3. The N-Gage uses Bluetooth for multi-player so everyone has to sit in the same room. With this I could play three other people anywhere in the country and it is live.

The first games to launch will be tank war game No Refuge by Mobile Interaction followed by shoot em up Lock n Load from Synergenix. Real-time games will cost 50p per play.

3 will also launch Macrospaces Battleships-style Cannons Tournament in which players take turns to shoot canons at opponents.

3 also claimed this week that games of near console quality would be available by May at 3- 7.50 to buy and 50p to rent.

3 marketing director Graeme Oxby said: We are picking the right games for 3G and delivering services that are fun and accessible at affordable prices.

Dingle predicted a revolution in mobile phone technology driven by the manufacture of chipsets.

There was a time when handset manufacturers were technology providers as well as a product providers he said. Now theyre simply about branding marketing and logistics. The value chain has changed and chipset manufacturers and software providers are more important. This end of the market is going to grow fast. Icera has a breakthrough technology and a clear strategy to deliver platform solutions with a low cost of ownership and implementation.

Mobile phones now require complex hardware to support more radio standards than ever before. Dingle says it opens the door for technology companies like Icera to develop more flexible phone hardware which enables over-the-air software updates.

Around 1500 of the jobs created over the next two years will be call centre staff and 500 will be in retail. It is understood that a new call centre will be announced in the next fortnight in either the north of England or Scotland.

O2 will cut non-essential management and administrative staff to counterbalance costs incurred by the appointments.

An O2 spokesman said: We are going to employ 2000 people in customer-facing roles which means retail staff as well as call centre employees. We are opening a fourth call centre in the UK. We cant confirm exactly where that will be until we have closed the deal and finalised the operation.

We are rebalancing the extra resource that will be invested in customer service staff so that it will be at a broadly neutral cost. We want to focus on the crucial elements of service and strip out unnecessary costs and activity. Customer experience and loyalty are key.

Johnson 42 was with Orange for 10 years where he was involved in the development of Orange Retail taking the business from scratch to 165 stores in just three years and expanding into 14 countries including territories in Europe Africa and the Far East.

Johnson said: Im helping prepare ORA for ongoing strategic initiatives that will place the company at the forefront of the mobile market as both a world-class supplier of communication products and accessories and the first choice of major network operators and mobile handset manufacturers.

He added: Im excited about joining ORA at a time when its becoming an innovative market-leading provider of first – to-market products and services.

ORA CEO Peter Oliver commented: Bob brings a wealth of mobile industry experience to ORA. His appointment together with the recent strategic changes weve put in place will significantly enhance ORAs profile in the coming months.

TCL went into receivership in November 1999 with debts of around 3 million and rumours that it had been affected by dealer fraud and tight margins on pre-pay.

It was run by Tony Lane John McLuskie Terry Cork and Rob Musk.

In 1998 TCL had a turnover of 21 million and employed 130 staff across 39 retail outlets. It also had a dealer base of around 300 connecting through Phones 4U.

A fifth joint-liquidators annual report published last Friday into the business dealings of TCL prior to its bankruptcy also suggested that money was transferred between TCL and accounts operated by two new companies.

TCL directors were on the board of the new companies too.

Carl Jackson joint-liquidator at Tenon Recovery said in the report:

A further investigation into the directors conduct was carried out in light of new information regarding significant funds received into an unrecorded bank account.

The funds are believed to be commissions due to the company and appear to have been transferred to accounts operated by the two new companies.

The directors of these new companies are common to those of the liquidating company and it may be that the monies have been used for the directors own purposes.

I have received a portion of the diverted funds at 132863 but the agent engaged to effect recovery has failed to transfer the balance of his realisations to me. A bankruptcy petition was granted against the agent on September 30 2004 on my petition. I have lodged the companys claim with the trustee in bankruptcy. At the time of writing and to the best of my knowledge no realisations have been made by the trustee.

He added: It is possible that some of the diverted funds were used to purchase land. My investigations are ongoing in this regard.

Sean Scully an administrator at Tenon said:

I cant say any more than is set out in the report. As you go on things unfold and it can take many years to get to the end of an investigation. It is something we cant put a timescale on.

The site www.fishblog.co.uk will be officially launched at this years Go Fishing Show at the NEC on April 1.

They capture the moment using their camera phone and then send the image along with a message to the website where it will be published said Nokia multimedia UK marketing manager Rachel Wright..

The Vodafone live! brand will be part of the new-look Megasoccer.com with promotions and offers displayed on every page of the site.

Talk and Text 400 which combines 300 anytime any network text messages with 100 anytime any network voice minutes for 30 a month became available on Thursday last week.

It will sit alongside 3s most popular tariff Talk and Text 600 which offers customers 500 any network anytime voice minutes and 100 any network anytime texts for 30 a month.

3 has also introduced two new text add-ons. Text 500 offers 500 any network anytime text messages for 20 a month while Text 1000 gives 1000 texts for 40 a month. Both offers equate to 4p per text message.

And in an effort to promote video calling the network has slashed the cost for its customers to make a video call to another 3 customer from 50p per minute to 20p.

Video calls from 3 customers to other networks have also been chopped going down from 80p to 50p. Both of the price cuts will run until September 30.

3 UK chief executive Gareth Jones said: 3 has set the benchmark for mobile pricing in the UK consistently offering better value to our customers than the old networks. 3 offers great value to customers who spend more than 15 a month on their mobile. As with any new technology 3G offers customers more for less. l 3 has come second and third in a survey of the worlds top 10 wireless services according to Analysys.

The report The Worlds Top Ten Wireless Services picks out those exhibiting high market potential effective implementation and suitability for reproduction in other markets.

3 was second in the list for its ThreePay tariff and third for its mobile video calling service.

He will also claim that he is owed 80000 in unpaid bonuses and holiday pay. He will seek a six-figure sum in compensation at the tribunal in Bedford next month.

King worked as a branch manager at Phones 4U between April 2003 and November 2004.

He says he was subjected to unfair treatment throughout his time at Phones 4U despite turning a Milton Keynes shop into one of Phones 4Us top performers.

I have been through hell he revealed exclusively to Mobile News. Everyone that has been on my side through this has been frowned upon. I have had witnesses who have been discouraged from testifying. My mental stability has been brought into question. I have been accused of theft.

Phones 4U declined to comment on the case.

An originating application for the industrial tribunal states that former Phones 4U managing director Peter Green acknowledged in a private letter dated 11 November 2004 that King did have a case for grievance despite the fact that Green publicly rejected the claim.

The application from Kings solicitors stated:

Mr Green rejected Mr Kings grievance. It is acknowledged that Mr Green wanted to draw a line under the circumstances to date. Mr King made it clear that he was dissatisfied with the outcome and concerned for his future.

Mr Kings concerns over [Mr Greens] decision were then proven justified by Mr Greens letter which acknowledged that he did accept that King did indeed have a grievance.

King was allocated the Milton Keynes branch when he joined Phones 4U in April 2003. The shop fell under area sales director Bob Cardell and area sales manager Wayne Massey.

Within a week we turned the branch around and it was smashing records. We turned over 150000 gross profit in one month King claimed.

King maintained that the performance of the branch when under his control revealed the previous lack of success of the area managers.

It made them look bad. My colleagues said that I was doing a cracking job and that I had showed the area managers up. Our success raised questions about their prior performances.

After three months King says he was forced to move to a Phones 4U shop in a suburb of Milton Keynes.

Kings solicitors state:

During the first three months of taking over as store manager the claimant spent the majority of his time firefighting the problems caused by previous managers and staff. The claimant did not have a day off in three months working in excess of 110 hours per week. Although the claimant raised these issues with Mr Massey and Mr Cardell he received very little support. The claimant contends that Mr Cardell was abusive and threatening often using swear words in an oppressive manner leaving the claimant feeling threatened and de-motivated. The claimant received around 10 of these phone calls from Mr Cardell each day.

King alleges Cardell engineered an internal investigation into Kings conduct and accused him of theft.

One of my sales managers told me that they were trying to stitch me up and had come to him with questions about cashback implying that I wasnt issuing it. They suggested that I was fiddling money and not doing things appropriately said King.

It was an exercise by Cardell to get rid of me. At an internal hearing I was told that due to mitigating circumstances I wouldnt be sacked. In the end I was put in a situation where I had to accept a final written warning and undergo three months re-training at the first Milton Keynes branch. I didnt want to lose my job.

King claimed that one of his witnesses Brett Shields had been intimidated.

He has undergone the same ordeal just because he is my witness. He has had multiple investigations against him. A person who made allegations against him has since removed her statement and told him she was offered money to create more substantial allegations.

A date for the industrial tribunal has not yet been agreed by the two parties. l In another development International directories business Yell confirmed it is suing Phones 4U for 100000 damages for allegedly copying its online database Yell.com without permission.

A report in The Mail on Sunday on 17 April claimed that Yell discovered Phones 4U was cribbing from its website in order to sell airtime to companies detailed on it after it planted hoax company names in its database. Caudwell Group companies allegedly contacted hoax Yell companies 22 times between March and December last year.

Yell restated its copyright policy:

We take safeguarding our intellectual property extremely seriously and will take strong action to protect it.

Phones 4U declined to comment.

CommWarrior is considered a greater threat than the Cabir virus that was isolated last year which only used Bluetooth to proliferate.

The new virus can create unwanted billing by calling premium rate numbers and can drain phone batteries.

It is dormant for some time before it activates. The virus spreads by

Bluetooth and appears to infect the telephone directory on predominantly Nokia Series 60 handsets.

The virus does not discriminate between phone numbers so it forwards itself to incompatible devices which holds up its progress.

The good thing is that users have to accept the invitation to download the message titled CommWarrior.

Mark Squires director of corporate communications at Nokia played down the threat pointing out that there have been no recorded cases of infection by this virus in the UK.

If mobile phone users follow simple guidelines and reject downloads from unfamiliar sources then it cannot infect their phones said Squires.