The company is relocating its distribution operation to Huntingdon having outgrown its current 37500 sq ft. warehouse near Heathrow. It expects to make considerable cost savings as rent and rate costs for Huntingdon are approximately half those of Heathrow.

European Telecom says its UK business now accounts for 70 per cent of sales up from 30 per cent three years ago. The company is also expanding its virtual warehousing operation allowing dealers and retailers to order products electronically.

The rationale behind the relocation to Huntingdon is all about growth both in the market at large and at European Telecom. The Huntingdon site will allow us to increase our focus on winning more major fulfilment contracts in the UK said Mark Jenkins group operations director at European Telecom.

Meanwhile European Telcoms e-Vita electronic pre-pay top up subsidiary has signed a 3.5 million three-year agreement with Austrian network operator One Austria to supply electronic pre-pay vouchers to its 30000-plus customer base.

The deal will see eV1500 terminals installed in around 100 One World centres in Austria. A roll-out to another 2400 independent outlets over the next year is also expected.

Last month e-Vita was selected by Vodafone for trials to enable Vodafone pre-pay customers to credit their phones by swiping a card through e-Vita terminals.

European Telecom is looking to sign further deals with fixed line operators internet and pay-to-view TV services in the UK and Europe.

Edwards has earned a reputation for revitalising and turning around moribund service provision operations.

He has been hired by The Carphone Warehouse to inject some of his special fairy dust into Value Telecom which will be The Carphone Warehouses service provider for a virtual network using One 2 One capacity.

The MDA says 92 per cent of people with mobiles in the the 15-17 age group have used text messaging. The ad campaign will target users in the 23-35 age group.

The fact we have the four most competitive operators working together is a major breakthrough for mobile data and potential text users said MDA chairman Mike Short.

The MDA is keen to promote messages particularly in locations were a voice call could be intrusive. we know what it is like trying to have a private conversation in a public arena.

The MDA is also launching a web site next month www.text.it will provide information on text messaging competitions and community message rooms.

The contract will see all handsets intergated with BAes fixed phones. BAe Systems has also ordered a BTCellnet Link 60 circuit for high-speed GPRS.

BTCellnets objective was to establish a one-business feel across the entire organisation said BTCellnet sales and marketing director Peter Richardson.

BAe Systems has annual sales of more than $19 billion the company employs over 100000 people in nine home markets.

Dataquest says Alcatel shipped more than four million handsets. giving it a 13.4 per cent market share for the first quarter of 2000.

Dataquests May Alert put Alcatel in fifth place in the global cellular market with shipments of nearly five million handsets.

On GSM only Alcatel reached a global market share of 5.5 per cent in the multi-standards cellular market for the first quarter of the year.

Dataquest estimates that the total world-wide market for mobile terminals reached slightly more than 90 million units in the first quarter.

In a few weeks consumers will start to discover our new GSM handsets and WAP across the range. We are confident this will allow us to upgrade our target beyond 20 million Alcatel handsets for 2000 said Jacques Combet president of Alcatels GSM mobile.

Dealers can log on and order from the current range of phones available from Orange or specify point-of-sale material that has been structured and categorised for ease of use.

Dealers enter their specified user name and password and begin purchasing products and services required. They receive electronic confirmation of their order with a follow up call from a member of the Kall sales team.

Accountants Grant Thornton have been nominated as liquidators by the companys directors. They say 1st Line Mobile went under when it became clear no more funding would be available to restructure the business.

Some industry sources say that 1st Line was hit for millions of pounds in clawback by BTCellnet from customers who did not want phones they had been sold by cold-calling telesales people.

1st Line Mobiles service provider was Cellular Operations in Swindon.

Said sales director Chris Jones:

1st Line Mobile was very successful and grew their operation very quickly. They embarked on a major TV campaign that was very expensive but didnt really produce the results expected. One of the reasons was that the campaign started when the networks were strengthening pre-pay which was perceived as being more attractive to the consumer said Jones.

They were offering standard 14.99 rental deals that couldnt compete with pre-pay so some customers didnt stay as long as expeted. As a result 1st Line was subject to normal clawback.This puts paid to the lie about their intentional mis-selling practices because they had nothing to gain finnacially from it.

At the moment Cellular Operations is most concerned about the 200000 customers that are still connected with us through 1st Line. Our priority is to make sure they received the best service possible.

This has had an affect on our connections. But we have many more concectors and different channels to market. We are still one of the largest post-pay connectors in the industry said Jones.

It wasnt Cellular Operations who put this business under. There were other creditors involved. Any future developments about the company will become clear after the creditors meeting Jones told

Mobile News.

The company is owned by Dunstone and AOL. The Carphone Warehouse will distribute the service. MViva customers in the UK will have mobile on-line access to businesses such as Abbey National TD Waterhouse CNN Boxman Yellow Pages ebookers.com Sports.com Eurobet Loot and Lastminute.com all at the push of a button.

The MViva service will be free. Customers will only pay for the call charges.

Dunstone has also linked with AOL to enable AOL Europe customers to access AOL e-mail and AOL instant messenger. The service will be known as MViva powered by AOL and will be launched through The Carphone Warehouse stores in the UK next month with roll out to France Spain Holland and Sweden intended to follow later in the summer.

MViva will be demonstrated and set up in-store on customers internet enabled mobile phones by trained sales consultants.

Customers will receive help and advice on the services available and will be able to personalise MViva to receive information and services that are relevant to their lifestyles when they need them.

MViva MD Max Alexander said:

The Carphone Warehouse offers customers simple impartial advice about the choice of handsets and networks.

MViva will offer customers a huge choice of top name content providers in the UK and Europe.

Our customers will be able to discuss the best choice of service and how it all works with a trained sales consultant in the Carphone Warehouse stores across Europe.

MViva chairman Ian West added:

Within four years it is estimated there will be around 220 million web-enabled mobile phones in Western Europe compared to less than one million at the end of 1999. By the end of 2004 almost half of all mobile phone traffic is expected to be data and internet.

Rights/Phone has been developed by InterTrust Technologies Corporation a developer of distributed digital rights management technology. It is claimed to enable all digital content to be securely transferred from the internet to a mobile phone.

The Rights/Phone system is licensed as software installed on the ROM software of specialised mobile phones.

This initiative is very exciting because it gives content providers the confidence that their content will be delivered securely to customers and that new revenue streams can be generated said The Carphone Warehouse boss Charles Dunstone.

This has the ability to help develop the wireless market dramatically over the next few years he added.

InterTrust Europe vice chairman Ian West said: This Rights/Phone initiative is very important in the development of the wireless global market as mobile phones become mobile Internet devices. Content and new revenue streams are critical to the wireless industry.

Rights/Phone product line-up includes Rights/PD software for portable devices set-top boxes and Win-CE systems.

As wireless services and devices increase in capability and performance even more robust business models and services will be enabled.

Schwab is already in advanced testing stages with a wireless solution for the Hong Kong market that Ericsson has had a pivotal role in developing and Schwab will be developing applications for additional countries throughout the year.

Charles Schwab was the first brokerage firm to join the WAP Forum in August 1999. The brokerage serves 7.1 million active accounts and currently has 3.7 million active online accounts with $418 billion in customer assets.