The shops are to be relaunched as Talk 4 All shops to emulate the One 2 One logo and are part of Cityphones plan to build a retail chain of more than 40 shops throughout the country.

One 2 One is able to take a mature enough view that demand encompasses all four networks. So there will be occasions where people want specific networks said Cityphone marketing manager Julian Parven.

We need to be able to offer the facility to support all four networks. This will be a separate retail chain based on the TCL shops and will expand our geographical areas of operation.

The new Talk 4 All shops will be situated in areas that include Dartford Deal Dover Epsom Herne Bay Leek Melton Mowbray Stowbridge Wallsal Folkestone Widnes Winsford and Camberwell.

3a Telecom has more than 25000 customers connected to the Vodafone network.

The business which is based in Manchester also operates four retail stores in the area and was last year voted Best Small Retailer in the Mobile News Awards.

Vodafone has had a successful relationship with 3a Telecom for many years and the acquisition represents an important addition to Vodafones UK business commented Vodafones UK chief executive Peter Bamford.

It is expected that 3as identity will vanish and be supplanted with VodafoneAirtouchs branding.

After handing over the money for the top-up to the retailer the card is swiped through the e-pay terminal for an instant top-up registered to the users account. A self-vending version of e-pay will also be available for customers who wish to serve themselves.

The market for e-pay is expected to be in multiple retailers mobile phone outlets supermarkets convenience stores off-licences and garage forecourts.

The old voucher system was cumbersome and inefficient for such a large market said John Gardiner managing director of e-pay.

e-pay has been one of the pioneers of the technology behind e-top ups and after successful trials with leading retailers we are delighted to have been rewarded with this commitment from One2One. The e-pay technology is already fully operational in Asia.

In the UK the pre-pay mobile phone voucher market is estimated at between 2 and 3 billion a year and is growing rapidly.

The e-pay system vastly improves not only the customer experience but adds efficiencies into the sales process said Gardiner.

Voucher stock will become a thing of the past. Customers will prefer electronic top-ups as the retailer will never be out of stock of a particular denomination of voucher.

The e-pay vending kiosk will enable stores to advertise on screen and will direct customers through a simple top-up process.

Customers will be able to use e-pays terminals to prepay for other services.

He is American Rick Darnaby who joined Motorola in October of 1996 in charge of brand management.

Darnaby tales over from Frank Lloyd who moves to a division looking at acquisitions. Darnaby who used to work for Nutrasweet will be based in Basingstoke.

Richardson was marketing director of BTs UK business division from 1995 to 1996. Since 1997 he has been a director of BT Mobile (now BTCellnet Corporate). He will be responsible for overall marketing in the UK including WAP and GPRS programmes.

The story predicted that Carphone Warehouse was planning a stock market listing in the second half of the year to finance international expansion and buy up many small and provincial outlets.

Carphone Warehouse managing director Charles Dunstone was out of the country and unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.

But a Carphone Warehouse spokesperson said:

Once again some exuberant city editor has gone barking up the wrong tree.

As usual we have no plans to float at this time. If I had a penny for every call weve had in the last three years about a flotation.

As a major investor Motorola will have lost billions of dollars on the failure of the 66-satellite system.

The USA bankruptcy court gave Iridium a last-ditch chance to find a buyer by last Friday (March 17). At the time of going to press no buyer had been found. In which case Iridium was ordered to shut off its service at 7pm last Friday.

Last week Motorola was contacting as many Iridium customers as it could to tell warn them about the likelihood of the service being switched off.

Iridium became the worlds first global satellite phone and paging company in November (Cont P2) 1998. Its network of 66-low earth orbiting satellites combined with existing terrestrial cellular systems was meant to enable customers to communicate around the globe.

Iridium was plagued with problems from the beginning. Koyocera and Motorola were unable to supply sufficient working handsets. The marketing and distribution was lacklustre. PLus the worldwide explosion of GSM and international roaming made the need for a satellite phone system largely redundant.

Last June Iridium set up a survival plan. It slashed airtime rates by 65 per cent brought out a flat per-minute rate for international callsand tried to appeal more to industrial customers. Motorola and Kyocera also cut equipment prices.

Without this contribution BTCellnet would have registered negative post-pay connections for the quarter. We are now established as BT Cellnets biggest contributor. We expect to have 500000 contract customers signed up by Christmas bucking the current pre-pay trend said a statement from 1st Line.

Said a BTCellnet spokesman:

The 74000 is correct for us. Its the net figure we always quote. Their 80000 looks like a gross figure. They dont say what their net additions were for the quarter.

The production in Pandrup will be transferred to another company and continued with orders coming from Siemens. Negotiations are currently being held with several interested parties and will be concluded shortly. Staff working in sales and administration will be offered jobs within Siemens and the Bosch Group.