He remained at Ora through its administration and subsequent purchase by Acson. Ora decided not to renew his contract in the restructuring.

Said Ora managing director Peter Oliver:

Since we took over Ora in February of this year we have implemented various changes which we believe will help the company run more effectively and efficiently.

This ongoing review (Cont P2) has meant that in some cases reporting lines have changed and roles have been restructured.

There have also been a limited number of positions eliminated as part of this process. In some instances service agreements have been not been renewed.

We can confirm that Bob Walker is leaving the company. Bobs responsibilities will be managed by Oras sales and marketing team headed by William Phillips.

Walker declined to comment.

Meanwhile Ora has entered its first agreement with US distributor Brightpoint to exclusively distribute O2s xda accessories in the UK and Ireland. Brightpoint will be O2s sole suppliers of xda accessories in Europe through its network of continental offices and distribution centres.

Oliver hopes the deal will be the first of many with Brightpoint:

We joined forces to strengthen our combined positions. The deal with O2 is to distribute xda accessories initially but may be extended to include distributing xda handsets later on.

All the companys products and services will use 3 in number format only.

The exception is the companys website where the new brand will be written in the language of the local country.

The company has refused to reveal any details of the (Cont P2) new logo or any information about products and services insisting that this information will come later in the year.

The new brand name will be 3. It is a simple name and it will be the same in every market. It will come across differently in each country due to the pronunciation in each language. It is nice and simple Hutchison 3G spokesperson Edward Brewster said.

Brewster has denied rumours that Hutchison 3G has sacked 52 sales people during the last four months but revealed around 12-14 people have been laid off over the past five months out of a workforce of 1800 people.

Operation Divert was launched on Monday July 8 with raids on homes and business premises in Manchester Stoke-on-Trent Sheffield and the North East.

A considerable amount of money in bank accounts has been frozen and other assets and cash seized. A Customs & Excise statement said:

Those arrested were interviewed by Customs investigators at police stations in the regions involved.

Fifteen people have been released on police bail to be interviewed again at a later date.

Three men appeared at Manchester Magistrates Court charged with conspiracy to cheat the public revenue.

They have been released on conditional bail until July 16. They are: Michael McNeil (31) of Radcliff

Manchester; Brett Simon Isset (27) of Walsden West Yorkshire; and Colin Daniel Jones (36) of Failsworth

Manchester.

Another two people appeared at Manchester Magistrates Court last Wednesday. Raymond John Cox (32) of Hiderstone Staffs aged 32 was remanded in custody. Sarah Louise Smith (29) of Timperley Man-chesterwas released on conditional bail.

Another man connected with a distributor in the Stoke-on-Trent area (NOT Caudwell Group or Signal) is also understood to be on police bail until September.

O2 has been keen to push the xda to independent dealers but have been slow to provide training and support to set up the product for customers says Steve Bellamy partner of Kent-based specialist dealership Fleet Communications:

We are finding it hard to push the product and drive sales because we arent confident setting up and showing people the various applications available.

It is a fantastic product and we have sold a few. But it is frustrating because we still havent had proper training from O2. We have spoken to O2 dealer manager and he keeps promising us that they will be providing training. But this has been going on for weeks and weeks.

It isnt just the independent channel that is suffering from a lack of training. We have had people who have bought the product at Dixons or another High Street dealer and who want our help in setting up their email address or other internet-related services.

Managing director of Dorset-based dealership Planet Communications Geoff Allen says:

We have been doing a lot of b2b recently and we have been unable to demonstrate the xda to our business clients because we havent been given the training to demonstrate the product.

A spokesperson for O2 said:

Our xda training courses have started this week. We did include a section on the xda in our mobile web training that we have been running for a couple of months now. This gave dealers an introduction to the opportunities available through data. There has been an online emulator of the xda on our website.

We would have preferred to have given dealers training on the xda before we launched the product as this would have been in both our interest and the dealers.

But we simply were not able to get the stock required to do that. The groundswell of interest in the product was so strong that we had to launch. We had people asking us about the product and wanting to know when it would be launched.

O2 says it would have been an incorrect decision to delay the launch until sufficient stock was available to allow dealer training.

The sales prove we made the right decision. They have matched our expectations.

We are very happy with the sales and the feedback has been excellent.

The news came at a creditors meeting last week amid reports that Telecom South directors may have transferred its assets to a new company leaving creditors with little chance of payment.

Telecom South ceased trading last month after a corporate customer went bust owing close to 200000.

Telecom South provided airtime and handsets to corporate customers health authorities and the emergency services.

It sourced airtime from of service providers including DVH RSL COM Your Communications and Avenir/CMC.

It lost between 300000 and 400000 last year when RSL COM went into liquidation.

Industry creditors include 20:20 Logistics AirCall Anglo Communications Avenir Telecom O2 Data Select Grapevine Communications Singlepoint 4U The Mobile Repair Company and Unique Distribution as well as the Inland Revenue banks utility companies and various other suppliers.

Dorset service provider Anglo Communications and London distributor AirCall are among the worst hit. AirCall is owed about 300000. Anglo is owed around 200000.

Telecom South managing director Clive Thomas is on the creditors list as is former finance director Mohammed Ghaffar who left last month after just seven months.

Some creditors are concerned Thomas and Ghaffar have transferred Telecom Souths assets to a new company leaving Telecom South with no assets.

Suspicions were raised when calls to Thomas were directed to Nu-Communications a new company set up by Ghaffar that is trading from Telecom Souths premises.

Companies House records show that Thomas and Ghaffar were both directors of Nu-Communications until Thomas resigned as a director last month.

Nu-Communications wrote to some Telecom South customers and suppliers saying:

With effect from 1 June Telecom South will cease to trade.

The assets of Telecom South have been taken over by Nu-Communications (UK) Ltd.

Ghaffar denies he has purchased any assets for cash.

I have taken on some of Telecom Souths liabilities. We wanted to build relationships with some of the airtime companies.

To do this we had to take on some of Telecom Souths customers. We contacted some customers to offer them the same discounted line rental deals that they would have lost when Telecom South went out of business.

Telecom South has earned the commissions on the initial connections. It is costing me money to pay the subsidy on the line rental. I have not purchased the customer database.

I had access to the customer database while I was working at Telecom South. The assets I took on were liabilities.

I agreed to take over the lease at the offices of Telecom South and I have paid some of Telecom Souths debts said Ghaffar.

Ghaffar says Thomas has no involvement with Nu-Communications.

Clive Thomas is no longer a director. He could not give me the commitment I needed while he is winding down Telecom South. Winding down Telecom South is taking up too much of his time. He remains a close friend. There is nothing wrong with that Ghaffar told Mobile News.

The liquidators report into

Telecom Souths demise was not available at the time of going to press.

However industry sources say signs that the company was in trouble had been around for some time.

Euro Cellular chief Win Donaldson said he stopped supplying phones to Telecom South a year ago due to problems obtaining payment.

It is believed Telecom South was adding between 1000 to 1500 connections per month and making 100 profit per connection which should have covered the RSL loss within six months.

A billing dispute with Anglo Communications arose after Telecom South said billing data from Anglo didnt tally with its own figures.

Anglo only started supplying Telecom South with airtime in November last year.

By May it was threatening to sue Telecom South over an accrued debt of 250000 (Mobile News May 27).

The dispute with Anglo resulted in Telecom South customers mobile phones being suspended. So customers stopped bills to Telecom South and switched to other providers.

Connection levels dropped to less than 800 connections a month in March.

The dispute has since been resolved and Anglo has received some payments. Telecom South managing director Clive Thomas was unavailable for comment.

Under a new initiative called Customise Your Price Plan users build the service they want by choosing a suitable tariff.

They can then add text interactive-text and WAP allowance select data services such as picture messaging and choose their preferred terms of payment (monthly quarterly or annual).

Additional services can be added at any time either online via the

T-Mobile website by calling customer services or by visiting a

T-Mobile store.

T-Mobile chief sales and marketing officer Clent Richardson said: Customise Your Price Plan recognises that mobile phone users want to be with a network that meets their individual needs delivers excellent services and doesnt pigeon-hole them.

T-Mobile told dealers that they had to run the promotion and that they had to sign a written agreement. Dealers were also warned that mystery shoppers would be sent out to ensure stores displayed the appropriate promotional posters.

But distributors and dealers were unable to get their hands on the Nokia 8310 handsets throughout the promotional period.

We havent been able to find an 8310 for love or money. We have spoken to T-Mobile and they have just told us that a new batch would be coming in soon. It is now half way through the month and we still havent received anything said George Christos of London-based dealership Tagrose.

What is the point of running a promotion when you dont have any of the promoted items (Cont P2) available? It seems like the left hand doesnt know what the right hand is doing said Christos.

T-Mobile distributor European Telecom has also been unable to get its hands on any of the handsets.

T-Mobile just doesnt seem to have any of the 8310s left ET finance director Jim Mann said.

We have about 20 of the old priced 8310s that had a higher retail cost. But well have no difficulty getting rid of them because the dealers want them.

The problem is that as soon as we get rid of them we wont be able to get anymore. And there is nowhere other than T-Mobile to get them.

North-East distributor Cityphone has also had difficulty getting stock for its Talk4All shops.

We have had a real problem with shortages over the last three weeks. We have spoken to T-Mobile and it has told us that the stock is on allocation but we havent seen any handsets. We also have a problem obtaining Samsung T100s.

I had heard that there was an internal meeting at T-Mobile last week about the lack of handset availability and the general handset situation. If there are internal meetings then the situation must be quite serious said Talk4All commercial director Julien Parven.

It is always the smaller dealer who suffers. Our two or three thousand phones are ordered to meet projected demand. If a smaller dealer orders 30 handsets it will be because he has already sold them. Those 30 handsets will be his lifeblood.

T-Mobile head of external communications Patrick Barrow said the network was not aware of any shortage and maintained that stocks exist in line with dealer forecasts.

It is understood the handsets were generic SIM-free handsets in standard Nokia packaging and did not carry any Orange logo or branding.

They were being returned to Nokia to have the software upgraded pending a July launch for business customers.

The handsets were in the possession of an Orange supplier when the theft occurred and have been blacklisted on the Orange network in the UK. We do not expect this to have any significant impact on our customers an Orange spokesperson confirmed.

The phone retails at 79.99 and also offers picture messaging predictive texting vibration and a 200-name phone book.

There has been no bust-up with Switch. We paid them upfront for any stock and they have received a share of the profits for continuing to maintain its business said TAP sales director Bav Majithia.

There is no dispute and we are unaware of any legal action against us. TAP bought Switch in April for an undisclosed amount.

Majithia hinted TAP was about to conclude another acquisition deal.