Allera 31 joined 3 as director of retail sales in March 2001. He has been responsible for retail roll-out of 3 flagship and Superdrug stores which now number 160 as well as establishing and managing 3s relationship with its main retail partners.

Barton is believed to have become frustrated by the handset shortages that have hit 3s sales figures in the past few months.

Barton told Mobile News:

I have had offers outside of the industry which I am considering. 3 may well be my last job in cellular. I havent made a decision on my future yet.

He went on: I have done the job I came here to do. We achieved the fastest ever retail rollout of more than 150 stores in a year. Admittedly it isnt enjoyable waiting for the handsets to come through. When the handsets do start to come through in volume 3 is in a good position to see a rise in sales.

My goal was to make sure 3s distribution was right. The network is getting better by the day.

It has been a rollercoaster ride and 3 became the fastest-selling contract phone in record time. Im proud of what I and my team have achieved. We have always performed to targets.

The news has not come as much of a surprise to leading industry figures including some 3 distributors although Avenir Telecom MD Isahi Novick said he was surprised by the timing of the move.

It is a shame to see him go but Im not surprised he has left. There were a lot of rumours when Gareth Jones joined that he would be pushed aside at some point. I can understand that maybe he was frustrated that lack of handsets was holding back sales and it was an issue outside his control.

Fone Logistics managing director Ian Gillespie added:

Im not surprised John has left. These things happen. John is a nice guy. Ive known him a long time and I wish him well in what he is going to do in the future. I didnt have much to do with John on a day-to-day level. We reported into the head of distribution who reported into someone else below John. John ultimately reported in to Gareth Jones. Once Gareth joined 3 the management structure became top heavy. Maybe they decided to trim things down.

Orange head of sales Stuart Henry takes a similar view:

I wasnt sure how long John and Gareth would last together but that doesnt seem to have been a factor in his departure. He would have been frustrated at being a sales director with nothing to do. If I had no handsets to sell for two or three months I would be frustrated.

Anglia Telecom sales director Dave McGinn added:

When Gareth joined 3 the network took a different strategy and sales took off. Maybe John felt his nose had been put out of joint by the new management. Maybe there was a clash of personalities between John and Gareth. It would have been really frustrating to be in a position where you have such a strong demand for kit you cant fulfil.

Barton started his career at Vodafone moving to Talkland Phones 4U and One 2 One before joining 3.

Our story ended: Orange refused to comment.

In fact Orange had submitted a statement that we inadvertently omitted.

The statement said:

Like all networks we have a short-term supply difficulty primarily driven by volume constraints placed upon us by manufacturers late launches and cancelled launches due to quality issues. This has been exacerbated by an unusually high number of orders which we were happy to satisfy last month.

We expect this situation to be rectified in the coming weeks.

We are happy to set the record straight.

The distributor has brokered a deal to supply the Newgen C800 compact to Tesco Mobile as the first offering from its new three-year supply relationship with Korean manufacturer Newgen.

The pink clamshell which resembles a ladies power compact has a camera video capture and playback dual speakers with 3D stereo sound effects and two pre-loaded games. It will go into Tesco stores this week at the launch price of 99.97.

Outgoing Unique CEO Angus Dawe said: Unique and Tesco Mobile have worked together to deliver an exclusive handset to launch our supply partnership.

When we saw designs of this product in our initial meetings with Newgen we felt confident that it would fit the bill. The process of brand and technical conformance has run smoothly thanks to the support of the key people at Tesco Mobile.

Unique has also announced a partnership with Alcatel to distribute the Elle GlamPhone Alcatels first handset dedicated to women.

The red dual-screened clamshell cameraphone is packaged with an exclusive E necklace in a perfume style presentation box. At a touch the internal screen can be transformed into a mirror.

The handset goes on sale in Elles eight regional stores this week for 149.99. Deals are currently being ironed out to get the handset on the shelves in high street retailers by the end of the month.

Alcatel sales director Julien Fouriot said Unique won the deal because it presented a full appreciation of brand issues and the best plan to deliver the offering in the UK.

The project is more complex than simply moving volume and the team at Unique has a clear understanding of our long term objectives said Fouriot.

Unique CFO Rob Lees said the two contracts had come about because of a refocus within the distributor to move away from virtual manufacturing to concentrate on vendor placements instead.

It was Unique that pioneered Virtual Manufacturing with the introduction of VK to the UK in 2004 he said. That was a massive success for us and helped to prove the concept to manufacturers networks and retailers.

This year we have advanced the model to develop Vendor Placement. Although a natural progression Vendor Placement places the emphasis squarely on placing the right products in the right channels to serve the right market sector.

Dinsey 51 will be responsible for the complete customer experience at 3 and his duties will include overseeing its call centres in Glasgow and Mumbai India.

He will have a sizeable task ahead of him as the networks customer service has received significant criticism from consumers since launch – although users have reported a noticeable improvement in recent weeks.

3 chief operating officer Gareth Jones said:

Im pleased to welcome Eric to the team – he has many years of experience in managing customer relations and I look forward to working with him on the ongoing improvements we are making in customer relations.

It is important that customer experience is at the heart of everything 3 does. We have made significant progress in our first six months and we want to ensure that we offer a first-class product and service to our customers.

Dinsey commented:

Customer relations never stands still you must always strive to improve service levels and deliver the best experience.

Ora previously supplied Orange stores but will continue to supply accessories to Oranges corporate and business departments. Ora will also fulfil mail order requests from the Orange magazine which is sent out three times a year to customers.

Orange started looking for alternative suppliers while Ora went into administration because it felt Ora did not have sufficient cash-flow to maintain volumes of supplies.

Rutland-based Clockwork Logistics was one of Oranges suppliers during Oras dministration.

The news comes as a blow to Ora which designed a new range of packaging for Orange accessories before administration.

Ora MD Peter Oliver (whose accessory firm Acson purchased Ora) hoped he could to maintain the supply of accessories Orange.

We bought into Oras brand its relationships with clients and an infrastructure to support that said Oliver after completing the deal.

Oranges decision to source accessories from multiple suppliers conflicts with what Oliver believed on taking over Ora.

Customers want to deal with fewer suppliers.

Operators and large retailers want to deal with a smaller number of suppliers who can give them everything that they need said Oliver at the time of the deal.

But a source close to mloop hinted that a new investor had been brought in whose budget was yet to clear. As a result a number of due mloop debts remain unpaid.

I can categorically refute the suggestion that we are in any sort of difficulty. All our private investors are with us and there are no problems chief executive Byron Rose told Mobile News.

According to Rose the company was set for flotation at a value of 29 million but three weeks ago decided to stay private. (Cont P2)

Mloop was launched in November 2001 to allow network operators manufacturers distributors and dealers to buy or sell stock globally with anonymity.

The company has appointed a series of industry big-hitters such as GSM chairman Jim Pratt (chairman at mloop) and former Orange sales chief Gareth Jones who came in as non-executive director earlier this year

Mann was finance director at ET when it went into administration with debts of about 13million. He was also part of the management buyout team that formed Global

Telecom and rescued ET from administration in May.

At the time European Telecom went into administration money that was owed to the distributor and dealers hadnt physically been paid by Orange says Mann. (Cont P2)

The administrators appreciate that the money is owed to the dealers said Mann.

We put a proposal to Orange offering to take over the debt. Under the proposal we would buy the debt from Orange and then pay what was owed to the dealers.

Orange refused and said they would give money to the administrators.

But at the moment no-one is getting any money. If Orange put a proposal together the dealers could get paid.

Orange offered to pay the administrators 100000 but they have offered the dealers nothing. We are at a loss as to why.

I dont want to upset Orange as we want to deal with them. But they arent doing anything for the dealers.

I think they can smell a quick profit. If they keep quiet for a while they see a 250000 profit for themselves which is the money owed to European Telecom.

I have never come across such behaviour in my time in the business. When we signed the T-Mobile agreement T-Mobile just wanted us to make sure that we paid out to dealers.

Orange sales head Stuart Henry told Mobile News earlier this month:

Outstanding commissions are being dealt with by the administration team and Orange Finance a position he says still remains.

Henry also says Orange is withholding payments against future clawbacks and that if Orange paid ET the money it would probably disappear into the administration hole and not to the dealers.

Mobile Everything boss Julie Gullick says she has battled with Vodafone since last November over outstanding commission payments that at one stage totalled over 11000.

Gullick accused Vodafone of trying to push my business into the ground after the network withheld commission payments following a 2500 debt owed by Gullicks previous employers former Carshalton dealer SJS Communications.

SJS employed Gullick until it went bust March last year.

Gullick had left SJS to start up Mobile Everything which specialises in business-to-business customers.

Gullick says Vodafone through dealer account manager Chris Harmen and dealer finance commission manager Doreen Hague told her she had to pay the SJS debt to Mobile Telecom the service provider Vodafone purchased in August

2001.

She was told this was because she had worked for SJS and her new company was now servicing and upgrading former SJS customers.

Vodafone said that I used to work for SJS. Because I was working on SJS old database they told me I was morally liable to pay the debt.

I refused Gullick told Mobile News.

This was just an excuse to withhold my money and push us into the ground. Just like the other 50 dealers who were sacked earlier this year which Mobile News reported (May 27) said Gullick. (Cont P2)

At the time of the fight to get our money we didnt realised this had happened to so many other dealers. I decided we wouldnt sit back and let Vodafone do this to us says Gullick.

Gullick says Vodafone eventually decided not to pursue SJS debt from Mobile Everything. But this was only after terminating Mobile Everythings dealer agreement on January 25. Under its termination clause Vodafone could hold all payments for 90 days in case of clawback.

Gullick wrote to Vodafone to say:

To withhold monies on the pretence of expected clawback is unfair and draconian. There has been no history of clawback on any of our dealer numbers.

Gullick accuses Vodafone of wanting her customer database.

Our customers were business clients. They dont cause us clawback. It was just another reason to enable Vodafone to let us suffer. It is foul play. Vodafone is now using the database we built up for years. My client base must make them over 100000 per month.

It used bullying tactics. It terminated our agreement so now it owns our database of Vodafone clients. Thats all it wanted. Small dealers are important to the network because we have had our customer databases for years. It used us to transfer our customers from Mobile Telecom to Vodafone.

It didnt want us in the first place. That goes for the other 50 dealers sacked by Vodafone.

We were just used in order to transfer our customer database over to them smoothly.

At the time of going to press no-one from Vodafone was available for comment (see Iain Graham interview P28).

Ridge is accused of spending over 400000 of company money without board authority on payments to non-PNC Telecom staff reports Bard Covington.

He is also accused of purchasing of stock from his wifes jewellery business raising the salary of his former KJC partner Joseph Case and other transactions involving family members.

Ridges solicitor Barry Mordsley says he will vehemently defend the allegations adding that PNCs actions came after Ridge submitted an application to the employment tribunal for unfair constructive dismissal by PNC for failing to pay his wages in May.

The allegations are totally without foundation. We will vehemently defend the action. PNC Telecom knows exactly why Ridge resigned. It was warned well in advance he would resign because he had not received his wages. The warnings were served well before the company decided to carry out any disciplinary hearing. He resigned before he was dismissed. We have brought proceedings against PNC Telecom for unfair constructive dismissal as well as for breach of contract and failing to pay him his wages for May.

We will issue proceedings against PNC Telecom at the High Court for breach of contract. This is just a way for PNC to cut its costs in avoiding paying him under his contract. He has been scapegoated for the failure of a company within an industry that everyone knows is doing disastrously said Mordsley. (Cont P2)

PNC sent out a statement last week saying:

PNC announces that following Mr Ridges resignation as director of the company it has come to the companys attention that he may have committed acts of misconduct. In view of this development PNC has commissioned a report into his conduct. The investigations resulted in Mr Ridge being invited to attend a disciplinary hearing scheduled to be held on

Monday June 24.

However his lawyers submitted his resignation as an employee with immediate effect and without notice on Friday June 21 and informed the company he would not be attending the scheduled disciplinary hearing.

The company was disappointed that he declined to attend the disciplinary hearing to provide an explanation of his conduct. In the circumstances PNC has concluded that his non-attendance was due to him not being able to adequately respond to the allegations.

The companys lawyers were instructed to issue proceedings immediately for the recovery of monies which it believes is due from him.

PNC chief executive Ian Gray disagrees that PNC is trying to avoid paying Ridge what he believes he is due.

Gray says PNC has substantial evidence to back up its allegations.

Gray said PNC became suspicious after two KJC maintenance men who resigned following Ridges resignation declined to return to the company to pick up their final pay cheques.

No-one has seen these staff before. They were on KJCs payroll but had never been seen at KJC premises.

They were never issued formal employment contracts and the company has little personal detail on them.

Ridge was invited to explain this and other matters that have come to light but he resigned.

If he has nothing to hide he would have turned up at the meeting. The company has substantial evidence to back up its allegations. We would not have taken this course of action lightly said Gray.

Bayley said that he had been approached by another dealer who wanted to sell him five shops in prime location sites. But Bayley had to turn the deal down because he realised T-Mobile would object saying the proposed shops were too close to existing Fonehouse outlets which already have T-Mobile (Cont P2) branding on the fascias.

T-Mobile is not looking for us to grow very rapidly. T-Mobile only wants us to open new shops where it doesnt have any of its own. There has to be some give and take so that we can agree where we can open our new stores and they can open theirs. If it has strategic partners they should be accommodating their business.

A T-Mobile spokesman said:

It would make total sense for us to retain the integrity of our retail brand and it is our responsibility to do so. We dont want to confuse our potential customers. It is about protecting our brand and being responsible for what we are doing from a retailing point of view.

If one of our solus dealers were to open an outlet close to one of our retail outlets and it didnt succeed then it could damage both of us. There is no common sense in a dealer doing this. We dont mind competition. We want to encourage competition. But competition in a logical location that isnt next to one of our stores.

Meanwhile T-Mobile solus dealers will soon be able to have the networks name on their shopfront awnings – albeit with special new signage.

T-Mobile had found itself under attack from dealers who had been told they would not be allowed to replace their obsolete One 2 One fascias with T-Mobile-branded fascias (Mobile News 10 June).

They had been ordered to take down the One 2 One fascias but were not given any T-Mobile signage with which to replace it.

T-Mobile says it is finalising plans to create separate branding for solus dealers. The signage will differentiate solus dealers from T-Mobile retail outlets.

A spokesperson for the network said.

We are working on fascia plans for dealers who are totally dedicated to supplying T-Mobile products exclusively. There is no problem with them using T-Mobile branding. If they are good dealers then we want them to display our brands.