Tesco telecoms CEO Andy Dewhurst said: We are challenging the normal telecoms buying experience which is complicated pressured and time-consuming. Staff will not work on commission. They are there to help our customers make the right decisions.

A Tesco Mobile spokesperson added: Customers dont like that kind of pressured retail environment. They want independent advice and they dont want to be pushed into a deal by a salesperson making commission from it.

A decision will be made in the new year on roll-out to Tesco stores nationwide.

The Slough outlet offers handsets on Tesco Mobile and all networks except Orange and 3. It also sells broadband and landline services.

A staggering 2.9 billion messages were sent during October with an average 93.5 million text messages sent per day according to figures released by the Mobile Data Association (MDA).

Person-to-person texts sent across the UKs GSM network operators last month show an increase of 25.7 per cent on the total sent during the same period in 2004.

Should O2 be acquired by Telefonica researchers at the company believe that the mobile giant will be the only player that is not allied to a fixed-network operator. They predict that Vodafone will be forced to make a fixed-network acquisition in order to stay in the game as rivals take advantage of WiFi and web telephony (VoIP) technology.

Informa telecoms and media chief research officer Mark Newman told a packed hall of industry executives last week that ARPU growth has been decreasing for the past two years and this is set to continue as voice revenues drop next year in the face of increased competition from VoIP.

Mobile networks are being forced by VoIP to reduce their voice dependence he said.

Informa principal analyst for telecoms networks and technology Mike Roberts told delegates his prediction that WiFi and Wimax wireless networks would eat into mobile voice revenues as businesses begin to adopt them.

Global voice revenues are expected to reach $700 billion ( 407 billion) in 2006. A third of this is expected to come from traffic within the same corporate location that could easily be sent via WiFi using VoIP.

If youre an enterprise that can see mobile in-building costs disappear youre going to trial it said Roberts.

Roberts added that this strategic threat to voice revenues would certainly drive further mergers and acquisitions next year.

There are lot of operators that see opportunities in a combination of fixed and mobile services he said.

Who believes Vodafone will be a mobile only company by the end of next year?

Informa researchers believe that the real winners in 2006 could be the MVNO model. Late last month Virgin Mobile produced a healthy guidance for next year prompting optimism from the City.

This is in contrast to its reaction to O2 and Vodafones results a week earlier both of them giving little hope for sustaining their current pace of growth.

As a result Informa predicts mobile networks will be tempted to act as connectivity wholesalers finding it more profitable to do this than to rely on a retail model.

The researchers produced a report based on a survey of 1043 senior mobile industry executives across Europe that predicted a decline in subsidies for handsets and services.

A sizeable majority (84 per cent) forecast voice services to drop by a quarter in 2006 while 60 per cent believe subsidies will decrease or remain the same as network operators battle to keep costs down. Meanwhile 49 per cent expect churn rates to increase.

Mobile operators need to keep their feet on the ground said Newman. The arrival of VoIP and services based on unlicensed wireless networks will fundamentally change the mobile landscape over the next five years.

Until now he suggested spectrum ownership has allowed mobile operators to control the marketplace. Over the next five years however he predicted that operators would lose this control.

With the breaking down of the barriers to entry price competition will inevitably follow he said.

If operators are to preserve profitability they will have to either cut costs develop new revenue streams or both.

If Roberts is proved correct 2006 will be what he describes as a watershed year for change.

Operators will increasingly look to cut costs through the use of VoIP outsourcing parts of the network and by reining in handset subsidies.

New mobile entertainment services may be part of the mix but more coherent wholesale strategies and innovative pricing schemes designed to take more traffic away from the fixed network could ultimately provide greater rewards.

See Business Watch p.18

Nor will they be responsible for the VAT debts of others unless it is proven that they knew they were taking part in a VAT scam.

These are the two important decisions made on December 7 by Poiares Maduro the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice on the case between the commissioners of HM Revenue & Customs and the Federation of Technological Industries.

The Advocate Generals opinion has to be ratified by the European Court to become binding. But the European Court rarely goes against the Advocate Generals view.

Currently HM Revenue and Customs can demand traders hand over huge sums as a security deposit against possible future VAT loss.

The Advocate General has now said the UK tax authorities were wrong to impose these strict security requirements on traders.

There are currently people facing criminal prosecution for failing to have paid security for someone elses VAT liability.

This is an absolute win for the trader. No longer can he be required to deposit money for someone elses tax said barrister Andrew Young who represented the federation in its legal challenge.

The joint and several ruling is more complicated he added however. The Advocate General is saying you cannot have strict joint and several liability. The UK [tax authorities] now have to show some cause [for suspicion] Young explained.

The cause the Revenue can show is if a trader had bought mobile phones significantly below market price and there was tax loss in the supply chain attributable to some kind of fraud.

If those two facts are shown a trader could be liable for joint and several liability he conceded.

The decision is good news for the legitimate trader. It is making the point there has to be some kind of fault. As long as a trader acts carefully and wisely and exercises due diligence he should be protected from a joint and several assessment.

On joint and several liability the Advocate General said: A person may be held jointly and severally liable for payment of VAT when at the time he effected the transaction he knew or ought to have known that VAT would go unpaid in the supply chain.

In this respect the national tax authorities may reply on presumptions provided provided that these presumptions are rebuttable and that they arise from circumstances indicative of the occurrence of VAT fraud which traders may be expected to know or reasonably be required to inform themselves of.

One trader said the Advocate Generals opinion had come as no surprise:

Joint and several liability was never going to be thrown out in its entirety. Most important is that Customs has no right to demand security payments and can no longer issue criminal proceedings for some failing to make a security payment.

Forcing people to carry out proper checks is no bad thing. Its about time the trading sector woke up and became responsible for its activities.

A Vodafone statement reads: Vodafone has recently become aware of an increase in the activity of box breaking Pay As You Talk products. Vodafone UK does not support this activity and has taken the initiative to issue a letter to help our customers become aware of this. These letters have been sent along with recommendations which we suggest our customers then take to minimise this activity.

Vodafone UK has sent letters to all indirect partners as part of our ongoing commitment and support to them in establishing genuine consumer customers for Vodafone.

Vodafone routinely reviews its trading practices and it was felt that a communication was required to help our customers manage their Vodafone business.

The letter is thought to warn distributors of Vodafone Pay As You Talk products that any of their customers that engage in box-breaking are exposing them to the loss of any of the commission arising from the sale of the handsets concerned.

The letter is understood to make a number of recommendations:

* To require dealers to limit the sale of handsets to a maximum of two per customer;

* To be suspicious of any sudden change in demand for certain handset models;

* To report any unusual buying patterns to their account manager.

* To recommend that dealers demonstrate the handset before the customer buys it;

* To recommend that dealers get customers to make an initial call in the shop to ensure that the handset is properly set up for them.

Elite Mobile director of sales and marketing Barry Nash confirmed that he had received such a letter and lent Vodafone his support for its strategy.

He said: Vodafone has sent letters out in terms of being sensible and making sure that its interests are being protected. We support what it is trying to do.

He added: Everything we sell we expect to be purchased and connected. Its not representative of the market. Like anything its not widespread but in some areas there are some companies that will try to take advantage of the situation.

New Palm EMEA vice-president Roy Bedlow said: The aim is to broaden our reach in the UK market. Dextra will distribute the full range of Palm accessories as well as some of its own Palm accessories.

Accessories on the Dextra list include Bluetooth headsets car kits battery chargers and GPS solutions.

Bedlow said: One of the car products we will launch in Q1 is a single unit that comprises a cradle built into the back of a GPS receiver so when you put the Treo device into the cradle it becomes a full car-kit complete with SatNav.

Dextra CEO Mark Ormerod said: The opportunity within the business and SME markets particularly is phenomenal.

DSGs head office is located on the same industrial estate where the fire broke out at Buncefield fuel depot. DSG communications manager Gina Jones told Mobile News:

On Sunday we just had security staff in the building and skeleton staff but we soon realised how bad the fire was and that we would not be able to use the building the following day she said. We then contacted all 2000 of our staff and put contingency plans into action.

However despite the loss of the building which Jones said is primarily used for administration work it is still very much a case of business as usual. Senior management have been working at our Stevenage distribution centre.

Other staff have been working at some of our other sites. Our contingency measures allow for us to work remotely so this hasnt affected trade at all. Any customer walking into a Dixons store would not see any difference in service.

Jones said it was too early yet to know the full extent of the damage to the HQ. Our office is on the same industrial estate as the fire but about a mile away so its too early yet to know whether there will be any lasting structural damage.

3s Hemel Hempstead network control centre has also been closed as a result of the fire. A 3 spokeswoman said: Staff have been evacuated. There has been some damage to the outside building but not to any of the equipment inside so our service hasnt been affected.

Orange T-Mobile and O2 all said that they had not been affected by the blaze.

The deal thought to be a share swap was announced on Tuesday. The current management team led by MD John Drinkwater and finance director Jim Mann will be kept on for the foreseeable future. It is unclear whether any ET directors will join the Emblaze board.

The acquisition is central to ETs expansion into Europe and it is not expected to affect Emblaze partnerships with Caudwell Group distributor 20:20 and Virgin Mobile. Drinkwater refused to confirm whether Emblaze products would be offered to ET partners 3 O2 Orange T-Mobile and Vodafone.

He said: This deal adds a huge capability to what we can offer. We have been investigating virtual manufacturing for a while and this gives us a huge leg-up. Weve been developing our systems for this.

ETs 100 strong workforce will not be affected by the deal although Drinkwater hopes that in the medium term the partnership will lead to growth in his staff base.

The deal has been in the public eye for sometime even though Emblaze CEO Laurence Alexander had categorically denied the two companies were in negotiations (Mobile News December 2).

A spokesperson for parent company United Utilities said: Consolidation is starting to take place across the telecommunications sector due to sustained excess capacity and intense pricing pressures. In response the group has decided to accelerate its disposal strategy.

IFRS accounting rules require that the business be classified as an asset held for sale. Consequently the company has taken a net impairment charge of 99 million in these results. This reduces the carrying value of Your Communications to around one per cent of the groups net operating assets.

United Utilities expects to have sold Your Communications by the end of 2006.

Turnover for the six months to the end of September 2005 fell by 11.5 per cent to 98.2 million with an operating loss of 11.8 million.

The survey names Caudwell Group-owned Phones 4U as top independent phone retailer with O2 as highest-ranked network-owned retail operation.

In the independent segment Carphone Warehouse the chain with the largest market share on the high street came in behind Phones 4U and The Link which even the chains own MD admitted was in need of a revamp.

A Carphone Warehouse spokeswoman said: This flies in the face of every other customer survey and piece of research that we have seen. In the past month What Mobile readers have independently voted The Carphone Warehouse as the best retailer and uSwitchs customer satisfaction survey also put us top. We have also been voted best larger retailer for 11 years running at the Mobile News awards.

In contrast The Caudwell Group was understandably pleased at the results. Phones 4U managing director Tim Whiting said: Given the manner in which all of our people have embraced our Customer Excellence programme The results from JD Power are no surprise.