Ursula Hauptmann-Smith claimed she had been fired after threatening to blow the whistle on the accounting practices of the company run by former DX Communications owner Richard Emmanuel.

But the employment tribunal has dismissed her initial attempts to pursue a case against the firm. Hauptmann-Smith has said she will pursue the action later in the year but TRS doesnt believe this is likely.

Hauptmann-Smith claimed that during her 10 months at the company some revenue had been allowed to accrue to Orange and that TRS had wrongly billed the company UTL for some Austrian units instead of billing NEC.

She alleged she had discovered boxes of phones sent for repair by Orange had been sent back to the company unrepaired – and that Orange had still been billed for repair work.

Another claim she made was that TRS head Sergio Tansini had lost his temper with her and later that week dismissed her. But the tribunal failed to rule in the former financial controllers favour.

Tansini told the tribunal I resent the allegation of fraud very strongly.

A spokesman for Total Repair Solutions said:

We expected this outcome. TRS staff have worked hard over the years to build an enviable record of honesty and efficiency in a very competitive market.

Called OYBike the service was founded by former mobile solutions provider Bernie Hanning. Cyclists can pick up a bike from any of the rental stations by phoning an OYBike call centre for a release code which is tapped into a keypad to unlock the bike. OYBike sends the customer an SMS message to confirm the release code and to provide a keypad code to lock the bike again on its return. Customers open an OYBike account for 10 and are charged for the total time that the bike is away from a rental station. OYBike charges 30p for 15 minutes 80p for half an hour 2 for an hour and 8 between one and eight hours.

Chief commercial officer Nick Read will run the Consumer Business unit and business segment director Ken McGeorge will lead the Enterprise unit until he takes early retirement at the end of the year.

Vodafone Ireland marketing director Tim Yates comes back to the UK as chief marketing officer in September. Yates will handle consumer segment marketing and keep a strategic eye on the Enterprise units marketing team.

Vodafones current marketing director Lance Batchelor will move to a new director-level position though it has yet to be announced.

Lord joins the network from a similar position at ITV. He has also been a legal adviser to Cable & Wireless.

3 has a fantastic opportunity to challenge the established practices in the UK mobile market said Lord.

But Orange claimed that the technology was not available to it when the 3G data card went into production.

Dilithium sales and marketing VP Lee Ellison commented:

3G data cards are an excellent service to business executives but Orange is missing a trick by not offering video-calling. Our VT Phone technology would enable these customers to trial video services on their laptop and would add no more than two per cent of the cost of the data card. This could boost revenues and increase the number of video-enabled terminals.

Orange responded by saying:

It is not a critical issue. We are looking at video options but we cant confirm whether VT Phone is one of the technologies. There will be a market for video services on 3G. We already looking to adapt a version of the 3G data card to address this market.

O2 has 51000 active pagers on its network although most of these are contained within automatic devices used for remote control switching operations for water and power services. Now the network has given users six months notice to switch to paging service PageOne or swap to O2 BlackBerry or BusinessText services.

(see Comment P14)

3 is adding 550 Argos stores nationwide to its retail base. Argos will sell ThreePay through its stores web page and telesales teams.

Argos claims that its catalogues are in two-thirds of UK homes and that 98 per cent of the population live within 10 miles of an Argos store.

This agreement with Argos shows our commitment to challenge the mobile networks at every level said a 3 spokesperson.

Its a good way to reach even more consumers in the country. Argos has a large reach in the UK and it will just increase our ways to market. We added 60000 ThreePay outlets in just two months after launch in February and were adding 550 more here.

Called Clever Cakes the new advertisement will run until the third week in August and targets small businesses. It highlights the availability of free calls between all company mobiles up to 100 handsets.

The campaign will also run for seven weeks in national and regional newspapers business and management magazines and online.

This month the dealer went direct with 3 and will also now be offering O2 Vodafone and T-Mobile through distributor Fone Logistics.

Director Andy Hattersley said he was looking forward to seeing business boom thanks to direct sales of 3 because 3s lucrative offers hold considerable attraction for both the user and the dealer.

He went on: We are realigning and restructuring the business. We will be going for all networks now primarily be specialising in pre-pay contracts and mobile accessories.

According to Hattersley 3 is dealer-focused with very good deals and commissions.

The way the market is changing we just couldnt afford to put all our eggs in one basket he said.

Oranges Double Take promotion is very strong at the moment and the handsets are coming into stock but we had to look at expanding our horizons.

Hattersley set up the business with his partner Jonathan Miller four years ago when they opened their retail outlet in Chesterfield Derbyshire.

At the time they decided to be Orange exclusive because there was the potential to put enough Orange connections on to make the business sustainable.

Two-and-a-half years ago the pair also launched an online retail shop offering Orange contracts. This remains unaffected by the changes.

Optical recognition enables the user to tap the images of the keys which is replicated on a compatible PDA smartphone laptop or PC. Exclusive distribution is from Avenir which is setting up a website to sell the device to consumers. It will be rolled out into retail channels as production increases and new versions are released.