Staff Reporter

Manchester United Supporters Trust handed out leaflets saying Why Vodafone should hang up on Manchester United.

Oliver Houston vice-chairman of Manchester United Supporters Trust told Mobile News:

Manchester United is a tainted brand. The original partnership between Manchester United and Vodafone worked well because both companies were beacons of financial success.

Now Manchester United is laden with debt and will face meltdown within three years. If Vodafone is number one sponsor it could face a public relations disaster.

Houston said Vodafone chairman Lord MacLaurin and chief marketing officer Peter Bamford fielded questions from the Manchester United Supporters Trust during and after the meeting.

T-Mobile was set to stage a gig by The Magic Numbers at Camden Market as part of its series of impromptu street gigs. But the event was called off at the last minute after the second wave of terrorist attacks on London.

T-Mobile had already alerted subscribers when it pulled the gig. A second text message explained the reasons for the cancellation.

A T-Mobile spokesperson said:

We didnt feel we should bring large groups of people together under the circumstances.

The Magic Numbers gig was rearranged and took place off Brick Lane in east London this week. Other headline acts in the six-week series have so far included Lemar and Rooster.

T-Mobile is expected to stage more than 20 outdoor gigs in London and Birmingham for audiences of a few hundred.

T-Mobile customers aged between 18 and 22 can opt in to SMS and MMS alerts from the network and receive information about the secret act and location two hours before the live show.

Gig-goers have the chance to photograph the events with the two megapixel Sony Ericsson D750i. A Kodak printing service will also be available to fans.

Phone Division was a London exporter which ceased active trading in 2003 and finally went into liquidation last month.

Mohammed told a creditors meeting he had been under continual pressure from Customs since 2002.

Phone Division was notified by its banker in 2002 that its account was to be closed because of a number of high level transactions.

It is the directors belief that the actual reason was due to pressure brought to bear on the bank by Customs says the report by the companys insolvency adviser HKM LLP.

Phone Division was successful in finding new banking facilities and provided Customs with the required documentation to support its subsequent VAT reclaims.

HKM LLP added: Without warning on July 2 2003 the companys London premises were raided by officers from Customs and all equipment paperwork and stock of mobile phones was seized.

Mohammed was bailed and bailed again subsequently but to date no charges have been levied against him or the company.

It is the directors view that that the actions of HM Customs & Excise and its failure to deliver up the stock assets and books and records (to enable the company to comply with its reporting requirements and trading generally) has effectively put the company out of business.

The director is confident that he has a good case against Customs for damage caused to the company but unfortunately does not have the funds to pursue a recovery action against it having already spent 200000 in legal bills to date.

Mohammed had retained the business as a shell company since 2003 in the hope of launching a claim against Customs.

However a disputed 80000 tax claim against him by the Inland Revenue forced his hand and he started liquidation proceedings last month.

News of the Motorola Q was leaked when a Dangaard Telecom roadmap featuring the device appeared on the Microsoft website at the start of July.

The device was finally confirmed this week at Motorolas financial analyst meeting in Chicago.

The Motorola Q will be available in Q1 2006.

As revealed in Mobile News last month the device is based on Motorolas successful RAZR design and around Microsofts new Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system.

The Q has push e-mail capability and a QWERTY keyboard which pits it squarely against RIMs highly successful BlackBerry range.

However users of the Motorola handset will save on the server costs associated with RIM because the Q runs off the Microsoft Exchange 2003 server.

The Q integrates with Microsoft Outlook e-mail calendar and address book. It comes complete with a navigation thumbwheel Bluetooth and a 1.3 mega pixel camera with flash.

Motorola claims the handset is 50 per cent thinner than all other competitor devices.

With the Motorola Q weve combined the best voice data and design technology in one ultra-thin intelligent hard-working device claimed Motorola president for mobile devices business Ron Garriques.

He added: Todays office space has the potential to be any place you want it to be with Q.

The service allows its subscribers to call or text other T-Mobile subscribers for 5p per minute for calls and 5p per text at any time of the day or week.

T-Mobile marketing director Phil Chapman said the tariff was devised after research carried out among current customers particularly 16- 19-year-olds who have told the network that they consciously choose the same network as their friends and family to get the best value for money while they talk and text each other.

Chapman pointed out that rival operators charge an average of 30p per call or text for the first three minutes of calls a day to the same network. But Mates Rates offers low-cost calling and texts from the outset.

The majority of calls made are less than three minutes so many people never get to the low-cost calling rates offered by other networks he said.

With Mates Rates people get low cost calls and texts right from the start – and the new rate is open to both new and existing customers.

Mates Rates handsets include the Sagem MyZ-55 Nokia 3120 LG B2050 and LG C3300. Chapman confirmed that

T-Mobile is planning a big TV and print advertising campaign to promote the tariff.

The campaign kicks off on Monday with heavyweight

outdoor ads and bus sides.

This will be followed by print ads in the national press and online. The TV commercials will begin on August 22 and run until November alongside cinema and radio ads.

The overall creative follows the theme of friends sticking together and keeping up to date he said. People on Mates Rates are able to see things that everyone else cant. The print ads follow the same theme.

The TV campaign created by ad agency M&C Saatchi will run for nine months and features Ken and Kenneth as Link sales assistants.

The ad is a light-hearted way of getting across our message of value and good quality service said Nick Wood The Links new managing director.

Its a skit on good old-fashioned customer service and is quite edgy and funny. It will get The Link noticed which is what were trying to do and hopefully attract customers.

The first ad in the series finds Ken and Kenneth discussing the merits of the Sony Ericsson D750 with a customer and pointing up its attributes. The pair will repeat their catchphrase Suits you sir in relation to phone features such as megapixel cameras radio and Bluetooth. Ken and Kenneth will also appear on The Links in-store buyers guides and point of sale material.

Wood added: We have recorded a whole host of creative ideas [with the characters] that will surface over the next nine months. It was quite interesting because there was a lot of ad-libbing on the parts of Paul [Whitehouse] and Mark [Williams]. We provided a structure and they ad-libbed around it.

Wood who was moved to his role as Dixons Stores Group managing director last week to take over from Elizabeth Fagan commented:

I have only been in the job for a week so my initial strategy is about listening to the market and understanding where it is. It has moved on in the 18 months [since I was last at The Link]. We want to make sure we understand the dynamics of the market so that we have a great Christmas.

He added: I will be talking with customers and staff and the operators too. I will be on the shop floor for a few days over the next months to get close to the customers and see what they want.

Fagan becomes group media director in the reshuffle.

Weve taken losses on it for a year and we werent prepared to carry on running it at a loss said Fone Logistics boss Ian Gillespie.

We said we would invest a certain amount but we couldnt turn the business around. We didnt want it to affect our profitable core business he went on. There is only a certain amount of money to lose that pride will allow.

However the closure has not left anyone else out of pocket. Weve closed the company properly. There are no creditors said Gillespie.

In another development Fone Logistics has appointed Carphone Warehouse co-founder Guy Johnson as a non-executive director. Johnson (40) was one of the founding trio of Carphone Warehouse along with Charles Dunstone and David Ross. He left the company soon after its flotation and set up a property development company in Portugal.

Johnson has now returned to the UK and will work with Fone Logistics for one or two days a month.

Ive known Guy for about 12 years Said Gillespie. We met up when I was on holiday in Portugal and he said he would love to get involved. Hell be an excellent sounding board.

Added Johnson:

Ian and I have known each other since the early Carphone Warehouse days. Hes running the show with his management team but it will be good to have someone else he can run ideas by and with my Carphone experience I can help him add some value to what hes doing.

3G video services provider Mobestar has teamed up with mobile dating and gambling company 3G-Scene to create the video-dating facility.

The 3G dating application which the companies hope will be available some time in the next three months enables people to sign up to a dating service via their 3G mobile.

After that they can search for potential partners view pictures and videos and then make live video contact.

It can function as an add-on to existing dating services or as a standalone dating service in its own right.

We believe 2005 is going to be the year when 3G finally takes off said Mobestar CEO Peter Richards.

We see 3G video dating as a central part of its success. It offers single people an easy to use and discreet way to meet. We are confident we can provide a fun safe and secure dating service with high-quality images suitable for all types of people.

Richards was unable to specify on which networks the service would be available. However he claimed the concept was attracting a great deal of interest from network operators and major dating agencies.

Vanguard and Londesborough worked together on a re-financing deal that never materialised and Fidanza left Vanguard soon afterwards. Sarsfield joins Atitel as a board director and international manager.

Industry speculation was that Fidanza had fallen out with Londesborough causing the deal to fail. Sarsfield says the fact he has joined forces with Fidanza scotches those rumours.

The fact that Im here probably says enough about the relationship that Londesborough enjoyed with Vanguard when Paolo was CEO he says.

If my introduction to my new president and CEO was as a result of my actions at Londesborough obviously there wasnt a problem.

Fidanza commented:

Philip shares our vision of how we want to attack the industry. We enjoyed working together when we were finalising the Londesborough/Vanguard deal. When that fell through and I started pursuing the Atitel venture I spoke to Philip about what I wanted to do. We shared an idea and decided to pursue it. Thats when he decided to join said Fidanza.

(See full story P18)

So says a report commissioned by O2 from independent economics and business research consultancy the Centre for Economic and Business Research.

The mobile phone sectors contributions to the UKs gross domestic product and to government coffers will double by 2013.

Around 56000 new mobile industry jobs in the UK will be created by 2013 and productivity will far outstrip the national average.

According to the report the mobile industry will contribute 49.1 billion to the economy by by 2013 – up from 22.0 billion last year. Government finances also stand to receive a massive boost. The total impact last year of mobile operators on the Exchequer was 15.2 billion. This is expected to jump to 31.8 billion by 2013.

Without the mobile industry the Exchequer would need to find the equivalent of more than 4p on the rate of basic income tax today rising to over 5p in 10 years time claimed the Centre.

MmO2 chief executive officer Peter Erskine said:

The analysis underlines what we have long believed – that the mobile sector is poised for even more dramatic growth as we focus on developing new mobile data products and value-added services.

The research shows that these services are likely to account for a significant element of the growth over the next 10 years.

Erskine made recommendations about public policy to the industry.

If we are to maintain the mobile industrys contribution to the economy and to life in Britain it is imperative we have a stable environment he said.

We need non-obtrusive regulation and balanced public policy decisions in areas such as the building of cell sites digital rights management and e-money.

Following years of enormous growth we have seen the industrys contribution to UK GDP plateau over the last two years as a direct result of economic factors and the regulatory climate.