Jail after Tube theft spree

Karim Ghouila 31 of Rathgar Avenue in Ealing faces seven theft charges and seven counts of dishonestly handling stolen property on various dates between January 14 and February 4.
He is alleged to have stolen a Nokia 1100 and a Samsung MP3 player worth £80 from a Miss Yun at Oxford Circus station; a Nokia 7210 from a Miss Bernardino on a train between White City and Tottenham Court Road stations and a Motorola V975 worth £150 belonging to a Miss Rahman between Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street.
Other alleged thefts were two older persons Freedom Passes from a Mrs Gray and a Mrs Zolyomi and a Samsung E700 phone stolen from a Miss Atkins at Chancery Lane station.

TAP offers 100k bounty after raid

The gang beat up TAP director Les St George as he left the premises on March 9 leaving him with a broken nose and jaw.
The gang ram-raided TAPs front gates in a white van but couldnt get past the first set of shutters at the entrance to the TAP warehouse.
TAP head of compliance and legal Ahmet Ratip said:
"After Les St George locked up on Thursday night [March 9] he was violently assaulted by four men driving an Audi A4 estate. He was taken from his car and beaten up.
"They ram-raided the first set of gates in a white van. And they tried to break down the first set of shutters too but gave up. They left the white van behind. Hopefully they have left a few calling cards behind in it."
TAP has now beefed up its security with an overhaul of CCTV gates and procedures.
"We are spending more than £250000 on installing a completely new security system with CCTV new gates and anti-ram-raid rods" said Ratip. "We are taking extremely serious measures. Undercover security escorts all our vans."
Ratip said that police are re-constructing the attempted raid for BBCs Crimewatch programme.
Ratip said: "There has been an increase in raids like this but if they think that by beating up a 60-year-old man they can get something then they are wrong."
St George is currently on leave but will return to work next week.
The raid comes as logistics companies and freight insurers are warning that raids and hijacks of high-value mobile phone stock around Heathrow Airport have increased dramatically in the past two months and are continuing to rise.
Insurance companies suggest that as much as £40 million has been lost to freight theft of mobile phones and CPUs in the past six months.
Colin Stewart security manager at Hawk Precision Logistics said:
"In the past three months there have been concerted attacks. They have tried to drive lorries through the side of walls."
The most recent raids in the London area occurred on February 15 in Southall when a gang ram-raided a depot and got away with £2 million in mobile phones and CPUs.
Forward Logistics managing director Angela Deane said: "It is very dangerous out there at the moment. It has got worse in the past few months. It is quite frightening."
Dave Riley director of a&b insurance brokers said that the number of claims relating to theft of mobile phones and CPUs has increased five-fold in the past six months.

Riley claims around £60m worth of merchandise was lost to such attacks last year with 27 per cent of that occurring in the build-up to Christmas. His clients have recorded losses of £4 million in the past six months and of around £2 million in the last two.

Riley said: "Two clients phoned me last week about attempted raids. And these raids arent happening in the middle of the night. Most of the hijackings in the past five months have happened in daylight near Heathrow."

Channel teams up for charity

Every phone bought in the sale on April 14 will generate a donation to the charity which supports research into Adrenoleukodystrophy a rare terminal brain disorder occurring mainly in boys.
The initiative was started by Midland chief Mark Liley who has two sons affected by the disease.

Vodafone clash with Carphone

Vodafone is believed to be concerned about alleged high levels of churn. The network has apparently decided the situation is no longer acceptable.
"For Vodafone to reach this conclusion like this the churn must be 40 per cent plus" said a source close to Vodafones UK management team.
According to the source Vodafone now wants to terminate this arrangement with CPW and bring its users back under its own management. It has invoked a six-month notice clause.
Vodafone declined to comment. No one from CPW was available at time of going to press.

Voda lame horse in channel over March

Distributors claim connections to Vodafone tariffs have continued to falter over March since the network decided to pull up to 100 out of new contract commissions just before Christmas.
Consumers seem to have migrated to similar offerings from O2 such that one distributor said he didn t expect any consumer revenues to go to Vodafone through the indirect channel after the next 12 months.
Vodafone is very plainly not in acquisition mode said a spokesman for Fone Logistics. The new connect model is non-existent and consumer business is through the floor. Even on B2B Vodafone appears to have reached its budget threshold. There won t ever be the same amount of money from Vodafone in consumer as there was in the past. That part of the business may be non-existent within 12 months.
A spokesman for Anglia Telecom agreed that business through Vodafone had been noticeably bad since the reduction in commission and that customers had been favouring comparable O2 tariffs through March.

Dealers fret over Flext

The new tariff has been far and away the most popular choice for consumers throughout March.
T-Mobile is giving a 25 per cent discount on all Flext tariffs and slashing prices on handsets through its stores and online.
One dealer observed that the tariff discount meant a consumer could make a saving of 300 over three years on Flext 35 one of the most popular variants.
Every connection is costing T-Mobile 100. There s no chance of getting that back. Why is it devastating the market? he said.
Another dealer admitted that one of his London stores had been suffering. T-Mobile has launched a great tariff and it is devaluing it straight away he said.
A spokesman for T-Mobile denied the network was undermining its dealer channel.
It isn t unusual for networks to offer great deals direct he said.

Voda falls short of 3G milestone

The network managed to increase the global base to 10 million in line with forecasts but a spokesman confirmed that once the sale of the Japanese business to Softbank goes through the live! 3G base will fall by 2.7 million. This does not include business 3G customers.
Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin said: This is an important milestone for Vodafone and I am very pleased we have achieved our target ahead of time.

Long deal for chrome D600 at CPW

The Samsung D600 goes on sale at The Carphone Warehouse on April 1. It is unclear when supply of the product will be made available to independent dealers through Carphone distributor Hugh Symons.
We are happy with the level of commitment on both sides said Samsung director Mark Mitchinson.
We expect the exclusivity period to last quite some considerable time. It is not a short-term project.
A Carphone spokesman added:
Samsung is manufacturing the chrome D600 just for Carphone across Europe. The deal is for an indefinite period. We will take a large supply to meet demand.

Tesco starts in-store contract deals

The supermarket will offer to connect customers to network contracts in two specialist Telecoms Centres from April. It will open a third Telecoms Centre in the next few months and roll out contract connections to around 120 stores over the next 12 months.
Dextra/4U has extended its existing contract with Tesco to handle the new airtime connections.
Vodafone Orange O2 T-Mobile and 3 contracts will all be available at Tesco stores.
Tesco will roll out the 10 best-selling handsets alongside selected monthly network tariffs. Handsets include the Motorola PEBL Motorola RAZR and Samsung D600.
Tesco Telecoms CEO Andy Dewhurst said: Customers don t feel comfortable in traditional phone shops. They feel pressured and find the process complicated and time consuming. They want someone to edit the hundreds of tariff options.
Customers will receive up to 300 Clubcard points a month which are redeemable for air miles meals out and holidays.
Asda confirmed this month that it had also started offering contract phones in selected stores through Dextra/4U.
l Tesco Mobile claims its new Extra pre-pay tariff offers the cheapest cross-network rates on the market. A 15 monthly gives a flat rate of 10p a minute to any UK landline or mobile and texts for 5p.

3G Mobile losses spiral

The figures lodged at Companies House concern trading to the end of 2004.
As well as its remit to promote 3G technology the chain bid to provide bill payment facilities and retail PSTN equipment when it paid 32.5 million for a number of outlets from former state-owned monopoly Eircom in May 2003.
Sales of 13.6 million were reported for 2004 but it made a loss of 1.7 million in its first seven months of trading. 3G s accounts noted that shareholders have agreed to continue supporting the company.
The chain has 21 outlets in Ireland and the directors statement indicates further expansion is planned.
The majority shareholders are Tony Boyle and Michael McGinley better known for their involvement in Dublin-based Sigma Telecom.
While the company retails product for Eircom Meteor 3 Ireland and O2 brand leader Vodafone is absent. It makes up for this by selling wired and DECT handsets along with lifestyle products such as digital cameras and MP3 players.