Sergio has been acting MD of the division since last October as well as being regional sales director for mobile phone sales in the UK and Ireland.

The A-R-T naming system has been conceived to help dealers and customers differentiate Ericsson phones.

The A-Class will be positioned at the lifestyle and value-for-money end of the market.

R-Class kit will be high-performance products carrying the latest functionality. T-Class will be the small phones where the emphasis is on design. Within these families a combination of numbers and letters will communicate differences between each class and product range. High numbers will be used for later models with more features.

Dealers will quickly familiarise themselves with the Ericsson A-R-T naming system. The system is also designed to help Ericsson introduce new products quickly and to establish a market communications investment system that will last beyond the individual products life said Keith Westcott MD of Ericsson Consumer Products.

Trade creditors include Banner Telecom ( 6754) European Telecom ( 5878) Fone Range ( 1034) Hugh Symons ( 1016) and Kondor ( 1050).

The biggest creditors are BT ( 213000) Inland Revenue ( 162000) and Customs and Excise ( 57000).

The Phone Shop Communication Centres was set up in March 1997 by director Paul Butler. Another director Guy Houghton resigned in October 1997.

The Phone Shop claims its troubles started in September 1997 when it set up a direct sales operation and took on extra staff.

But high staff turnover and insufficient management control caused this division to trade at a loss for many months until a year later when it was radically overhauled.

The company had also been hit hard by commission clawback of nearly 90000 from Securicor Cellular Services. A further 60000 was lost by a breakdown in relationships with sub-dealers and franchises.

Another 60000 was lost when the company opened a shop that operated both as a mobile phone dealer and computer retailer.

The shop in Worcester Park started racking up losses almost immediately due to difficulty in recruiting sufficiently skilled staff.

Two former employees were charged and convicted of theft of stock but the stolen equipment was never recovered. The shop only moved into profit last November when the computer sales side was shut down.

The Phone Shops bankers clamped down on the company after a 73000 cheque issued by a very reputable debtor had to be represented after at first bouncing.

A further 50000 of bad debt meant that the company was insolvent even though it had since turned itself around. BT and Customs and Excise agreed to a voluntary arrangement and an undertaking to repay debt from trading profits within three years but the Inland Revenue vetoed this.

The SPH-WP10 combines functions of a digital watch with a handset. It weighs 50g (with battery) and measures 67x58x20mm. Talk time is said to be 90 minutes with 60 hours of standby. Other features are voice activated dialling phone directory and vibration alert.

Tandy has appointed a new national account manager for its dealership division to identify and recruit new dealers into the Tandy network.

The new man is Kevin Cartlidge who moves up from district sales manager for the Midlands. Cartlidge has been with Tandy for 18 years.

Tandy now owned by The Carphone Warehouse currently has 160 dealers in the UK and Eire. Around six per cent of total Tandy sales come from the dealership division.

Tandy says it had 50 enquiries from independent electrical retailers at a recent trade show who were looking to be appointed as new Tandy dealers.

Cartlidge reports to Barry Liddle business development manager for the dealership division.

The trials start this month and involves offering Maxon phones upgraded with Cursor location software by Cambridge Position Systems to 250 business users and consumers.

The trials precede the full commercial launch of the Cursor system planned for later this year.

The trialists will call the AA over the Vodafone network to access an SMS menu of location-specific services such as where the nearest bank cinema garage tourist site etc is.

The Cursor system works with any GSM network and is claimed to be accurate to within 125 metres. This is better than the requirements of a recent directive in America which requires by 2001 all emergency calls made on a mobile to identify the callers location.

The ability to identify the location of a mobile phone user paves the way for a whole new range of services for our customers said Alan Harper newly-appointed managing director of the Vodafone network.

Participating in the Cursor trial will help us to further identify customers requirements for location-based services Harper added.

Craig Blount general manager of AA Telematics said:

Understanding the precise location of a caller enables the AA to improve the relevance of the services that it offers. A major benefit of this technology is that we can be more confident about a members location when they break down.

The Cursor system involves a minor software upgrade to any GSM phone at its production stage. It uses a system called Enhanced Observed Time Difference to calculate the phones position relative to its nearest base station.

Cambridge Positioning Systems is a venture-capital-backed organisation formed just over three years ago to develop just such a software-based positioning system.

When most customers start to understand the hidden costs of other tariffs they soon realise that Orange Talk Plans offer them better value on a best performing network said Orange chief operating officer and group director of UK operations Bob Fuller.

Fullers comments come as Orange confirmed it would be extending its OVP to cover all recently-announced competitor tariffs including the 10p/2p deal announced by One 2 One last month.

Orange launched the OVP last October as an offer to replicate all operators most popular tariffs.

The last month has seen too much attention placed on price Fuller added.

Buying a mobile is not just about the headline offers. Customers need to understand what is included with a tariff.

With the announcement that Orange is extending the OVP to include all new competitor tariffs Orange is highlighting the fact that we offer the best value on the best network.

Orange estimates its Orange Care Package given to all Talk Plan customers is worth 60 a year in free insurance three-year handset warranty 24-hour handset replacement service and free calls to customers service free conference calling free group messaging caller ID call waiting call divert and call barring.

The network says it now has over 2.6 million customers and has reached 80 per cent geographic coverage and 98 per cent population coverage with more than 5300 sites (with 10000 targeted by 2001).

he film will have its European premier today in Italy and in the rest of Europe during summer 1999.

This is the second time Nokia products have been placed in a blockbuster movie. The first was the appearance of the Nokia Communicator in The Saint two years ago.

The Matrix explores the theme of the world being a computer-modelled dream created by robots to distract human minds while using human bodies as disposable sources of energy?

Keanu Reeves plays a hacker who breaks into the parallel reality of The Matrix computer using among other things futuristic communication technology from Nokia.

Nokia is proud to see that the makers of The Matrix have chosen Nokias mobile phones to be used in their film said Heikki Norta general manager marketing services Nokia Mobile Phones Europe and Africa.

A range of promotional material and a related competition will be launched through Nokias website www.nokia.com from June 10.

Mobile phone manufacturers are increasingly seeing movies as a route to market.

Ericsson supplied a futuristic phone for use in the last James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies while Motorola co-operated in the making of the new Bond The World is Not Enough by allowing its Groundswell Swindon factory to be used as a location.

Last year Philips had its phones featured in the Tony Scott-directed thriller Enemy of the State.

Dean Richard Gent (27) of Westbury Court Park Road Beckenham Kent is charged with stealing 130 belonging to Harrods at The Carphone Warehouse on November 26 last year.

He was ordered to appear at the Crown Court for a preliminary hearing on June 4.