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.

The departures follow John McLuskies arrival at Ora as sales director last month.

The sales function has changed and substantially increased because were now taking on a number of very large contracts with the networks and handset manufacturers (cont P2) said Ora MD Ken Edmonds.

So what were doing is moving the sales force into professional account management which involves a different set of activities. Were also now rebuilding and making more solid the work across Europe. As this year goes on you will see us adding more people and agents across Europe.

This complements Vodafones existing A Head For Business initiative. Service providers get extra marketing support and the ability to offer customers a special business customer service line manned by operators trained in handling queries from small businesses. SPs will also be able to offer their SME clients regular tariff checks and a 24-hour handset replacement service in the event of theft or damage.

Its a good move. Anything that can help us target the SME is a good thing. They account for a large percentage of the business and tend to be more loyal and less likely to churn said Geoff Walters head of distributor/service provider CMC.

A spokesman for Fone Logistics solicitors Robert Muckle told Mobile News:

Proceedings have been issued. We have leading counsels advice that we have a very strong case. The matter will be decided through the courts. The actual proceedings have been bought by a factoring company on behalf of Fone Logistics.

JWE Telecom chief executive Tony Farmer said:

The relationship with Fone Logistics was not satisfactory from the beginning. The supply contract was beset with IT and delivery problems which took many months to resolve. We are very concerned regarding a number of areas of the contract including quality timing of deliveries and pricing.

Our customer and dealer partnerships require high levels of service which were not being met. As a result of advice from leading counsel we have withheld an (Cont P2) element of payment claimed as due by Fone Logistics under its outstanding invoice. This claim has been defended in its entirety and we are currently finalising our counterclaim which we believe will be significantly in excess of the amount claimed by Fone Logistics said Farmer.

Meanwhile the acquisition of Oxfordshire-based Managed Network Services (MNS) brings in a revamped management team at JWE.

The transaction brings 14 million of new cash into JWE through placing of shares with institutions.

The companys new chairman is current MNS chairman Bob Kennedy. MNSs managing director John Wood becomes networks services director at JWE.

We are building a company at the forefront of the convergence revolution providing products and services spanning voice and data fixed line and mobile internet and airtime in a single integrated offering said Farmer.

MNS brings us airtime service and billing we can develop and deploy in ways which suit our customers needs.

We have all the ingredients in place and the resources to grow our market share and become a much larger player covering the whole of the UK.

Industry sources claimed Ackroyd had walked out of the company last Monday after a management dispute. TAP marketing director Afzal Chaudhray told Mobile News:

There was a misunderstanding over Richards starting date. He is definitely here and is working from our new premises.

Caudwell says it was always his ambition to achieve financial security by the age of 40.

Quite frankly Ive been so bloody busy for the past 20 years that many leisure and family opportunities have passed me by he told Mobile News.

Ive a lot to catch up on. My passions are motor sport and cycling. I want to have some sort of big cycling adventure maybe riding across America. I also want to maybe try some car racing. Ive had trials in Formula Ford and I may want to pursue that. Id love to get my private pilots licence.

Foremost now is that I develop the freedom to pursue my personal interests. I am now lucky enough to be able to do just that and enjoy the fruit of the last 20 years hard slog.

John and myself have programmed a 10-month exit schedule which obviously means I wont just suddenly not be there. It is too early to say how extensive or not my ongoing involvement will be. I may retain some interests maybe consultancy.

Johns aspiration is to run and lead the business to being the largest of its kind in the world. Mine isnt. Mischief-makers may want to believe theres been a board-room bust-up but John and I are as close as weve ever been.

Said John Caudwell:

Our culture has always been to build a company capable of competing and winning in the toughest of markets against the stiffest of competition.

To succeed the management not only needs vision and operational ability but also an uncompromising commitment to be the best.

The culture and quest to attract and secure the highest calibre of management possible has enabled

Brian the option of pursuing other interests.

Orange is buying 200 million worth of infrastructure from Nokia. The equipment includes GSM base stations. mobile internet systems. and high-speed data GSM HSCSD and EDGE technologies.

The Nokia technology places us on our first step towards next generation mobile services through the provision of HSCSD and EDGE technologies said Bob Fuller COO of Orange.

This agreement means that we will be able to meet the capacity requirements both now and in the future as we see the continued growth in mobile voice and data services.