The content partnership which will initially last for a year enables 3 users to watch live TV as well as download clips and highlights from ITVs hit shows.

Content includes the latest series of Im A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! Emmerdale Coronation Street and other high-profile shows and specials.

The row broke out when Dave Ford managing director of Kent-based Kelly Freight Services which had been a customer of DM Telecom for two years contacted Orange directly in September for an upgrade.

Ford was contacted the following day and upgraded by a direct dealer of Orange which later turned out to be Celltalk.

I was under the impression that Orange had arranged this directly and that I would continue to be account-managed by DM Telecom said Ford. But when I got my bill from the new company and found there were more handsets on it than Id requested there was no number for me to call.

DM Telecom managing director Dino Maroudias turned to his Orange distributor Hugh Symons to see if it could help. Business manager Bob Sweetloves enquiries revealed that Fords connections had been put through by Celltalk.

We have been attempting to resolve the situation with Orange but the best advice to date has been for DM Telecom and the direct dealer to resolve the issue between them said Sweetlove. This has been attempted but the direct dealer seems reluctant to assist.

Clearly DM Telecom could have lost the business to Orange direct as a consequence of the direct contact. The fact that another dealer appears to have benefited is proving hard to swallow. Quite rightly it is looking to Orange to resolve the matter.

Celltalk managing director Richard Marsden insisted he was happy to co-operate however.

All our sales calls are recorded and we ensure our orders are processed correctly he said. I will be happy to talk to both Kelly Freight and DM Telecom to see if we can reach an amicable solution.

All the councils social workers currently use XDA handsets on O2. Barnet has agreed to pilot new technology from mobile location services company TrackaPhone which means the device can be used to pinpoint its employees locations.

The locator is currently being tested by 100 social workers. The full roll-out will be to more than 240 frontline workers.

If a social worker feels at risk they hit a discreet button on their XDA. TrackaPhone sends an alert to the duty desk which identifies the location of the distress call.

The people locator solution also enables Barnet Council to monitor the whereabouts of their off-site employees – though staff can turn the device off when they wish not to be tracked.

The Taiwanese firm is already working with Orange T-Mobile O2 Vodafone and Telefonica.

A spokeswoman said: We are in discussions with other channel partners about future business opportunities but cannot disclose any names at this stage.

HTC opened its new European head office in Slough Berkshire last Friday.

It claims high performance for e-mail voice text messaging Internet organiser and corporate data applications.

It will be available for Oranges enterprise customers in France on December 15 with retail availability planned for January. It is expected to be made available in a phased roll-out to the UK and other Orange markets across Europe during early 2006.

Vodafone Business Email is the networks own-brand mobile e-mail solution delivering mobile e-mail contacts and calendar. For smaller companies and individuals there is a personal solution that provides web-based e-mail to a wide range of mobile phones in real time.

For larger companies there is an enterprise server-hosted version giving them the freedom to have push e-mail and PIM functionality on a wide selection of Symbian and Windows Mobile-based devices.

To encourage adoption Vodafone is offering a free server until May 31.

Vodafone is also taking advantage of a deal brokered by Nokia and BlackBerry maker RIM to bring BlackBerry software to a range of Nokia smartphones.

This extends the benefits of BlackBerry for the end user on non-RIM devices so they can have the service on a device they are already familiar with said Vodafone UK head of enterprise data services John Lillistone.

We are starting with the Nokia 6810 6820 and 6822. Coming soon will be the Nokia 9300 9500 VPx and Vodafone v1620.

And from early 2006 Vodafone will be launching the Microsoft Windows Mobile service using scheduled ActiveSync which is designed for companies using Microsoft Exchange 2003.

To support all of the new e-mail solutions Vodafone is planning to offer all its smart device customers access to enhanced customer service support via Vodafone Device Management which will allow Vodafone to remotely configure and maintain smart devices connected to the network.

8el will supply e-reporting group with a private wide area network connecting its two UK sites as well as direct voice services as part of a complete communications solution.

8el sales and marketing director Chris Sayer said the deal would enable e-reporting group to benefit from network resilience increased network visibility and cost savings.

This is a bread-and-butter contract he said. Because e-reporting group has signed up for a three-year contract we will be able to pass the maximum advantages and savings back.

The coup comes just two months after the company was named one of Britains fastest growing technology companies by The Sunday Times after posting an average annual sales growth of 105 per cent over the past three years.

E-reporting is the product of the recent merger between medico legal firm ewitness and research firm Medical Report Services. The group needed to implement a private voice and data network between its existing Leeds office and the Medical Report Services site in Redditch.

A third of all mobile consumers in the UK switched operators in 2004 according to telecoms watchdog Ofcom. According to the study every respondent indicated that call drop-offs was among the top three reasons they would consider changing their mobile service.

Poor service was cited by 44 per cent of respondents as top reason for changing mobile operators.

Each new mobile customer costs around 400 to recruit in the UK money mainly spent on marketing. At this rate the total cost to the mobile industry of replacing every churning customer is 8.16 billion per year.

This number is astounding – everyone knows about mobile phone drop outs but few realise the extent of the problem and the mounting cost to the industry said David OConnor managing director of Horsebridge Network Systems.

Call drop-off rates could be largely reduced if mobile operators reallocated some of their marketing budgets to fill quality cracks on their networks. The technology is available now and its not rocket science.

McBride told Mobile News that T-Mobile dealers stood to do well from the networks acquisition drive in 2006.

T-Mobile will have much more focus on acquisition in 2006 and those that will do well from a networks acquisition push are the dealers said McBride. Our competitors over-egged it in 2005 and it has affected their EBITDA. Their shareholders wont let them do it again and they will back off as we become more aggressive. 3 is going to have a tough year in the marketplace and T-Mobile is ready to be aggressive.

He added: If I were one of the guys in T-Mobiles indirect business today Id be very happy about its intentions going into 2006.

McBride joins Amazon UK as managing director in the new year. He will be replaced by T-Mobile USA vice-president of sales Jim Hyde.

McBride said that his departure was announced to colleagues in the spring when the network mapped out its plans for the next three years. McBride said that it was important that T-Mobile install a managing director to oversee its full programme of growth starting with 1.5 billion investment in stores channel and brand.

The whole plan [for growth] will take two-to-three years to complete said McBride. Now is the time to start to execute the plan and whoever is in charge needs to take the job on for the duration of that project.

McBride admitted that T-Mobiles brand had suffered and its market share failed to spark on his watch.

The brand lost its way particularly on the international campaigns he said. Also I didnt gain as much market share as I would have liked. But the new investment should allow my successor to put that right.

He added: All told my score-card is pretty good. I have left the company in better shape than I found it.

Full interview and feature see page 22

Olamide Kavode Sunmola (23) was found guilty of dishonestly handling a stolen Royal Bank of Scotland credit card and using it to obtain the phone by deception last December.