Under the terms of an $800 million secured credit facility Iridium has to have minimum cash revenues of $4 million cumulative accrued revenues of $30 million 27000 Iridium World Satellite Service customers and 52000 total customers.

The organisation has been given a 60-day breathing space by its lenders but has to meet these customer levels and revenues by the end of May.

Iridium is blaming its failure to meet the minimum customer and revenue targets on its problems with availability of handsets and lack of properly-trained service providers and sales people.

Iridiums 100 or so cellular network partners throughout the world are also being blamed for not putting enough marketing muscle behind Iridium.

Iridium has told its bank lenders it is now revising its revenue and customer forecasts in light of these delays and will request the banks to modify their minimum requirements.

Meanwhile ex-Motorola general manager Don Burns has been put in charge of Iridium Germany (see story P6).

Motorola has guaranteed to back Iridium through its financial problems and has said there is no question of Iridium going under.

Cable & Wireless and MediaOne have both stated they are now looking to cash in on One 2 One which could be sold for as much as $11 billion. They both have 50 per cent joint ownership of One 2 One.

The decision to sell follows MediaOnes merger with Comcast the third largest cable operator in the USA. MediaOne (which was previously known as US West) also has stakes in mobile operators in Poland Czech Republic Slovak Republic and Hungary.

Dolphins TETRA network will provide services in the second quarter of this year. This will provide voice and data services such as packet data near instant call set-up PSTN access internet access and virtual private networking.

Dolphin is part of Dolphin Telecom the largest public mobile radio operator in Europe and which is in turn a subsidiary of global wireless operator Telesystem International Wireless.

It is important to our business to recruit committed service providers to sell and support our products said Dolphins marketing director Mark Riley.

Added TW Telecom managing director Harry Thompson:

A TETRA-based network is the way forward for mobile users who are currently employing more than one communications technology.

As part of this re-organisation Tandy has appointed a new merchandise controller. He is Paul Haylock who was previously a senior buyer and business analyst for Office World.

Haylocks job will be to manage and oversee the merchandise team.

This is an exciting time with product ranges being revised as the millennium approaches demonstrating the companys continuing commitment to position itself as a strong retail force for the future.

The ISDN service will be offered in the UK by BT. The new service was unveiled at CeBIT a fortnight ago.

The company blames difficulties in getting enough product to supply the Asia Pacific region as well as price cutting from distributors selling phones into China at a cheaper price creating price instability.

The Brazilian currency crisis also hit Brightpoint hard as nearly all its transactions are based on the Brazilian Real which was devalued.

Brightpoint also admits that it has been unable to replace earnings derived from its UK trading division which was shut down late last year.

More grief has come from the prolonged introduction of the Iridium mobile phone satellite system as well as the severe shortages of Iridium handsets from Kyocera.

Because of this anticipated revenue and income expected to be generated by supplying Iridium phones was not forthcoming.

We are very disappointed in the outlook for our first quarter said Brightpoint chairman and chief executive officer Robert Laikin.

However we remain committed to our business strategies and to the key markets around the world in which we operate.

We view our success in North America as validation of the business model that we are deploying in all of our regions.

We continue to view our goal as generating long-term shareholder value through profitable controlled growth and prudent balance sheet management Laikin explained.

He is Richard Brennan who originally joined Orange in 1993 as group IT and operations manager in charge of setting up IT systems.

Brennan now reports to UK chief operating officer Bob Fuller and will be in charge of marketing communicaitons and services brand management new product development and IT and systems development. Brennan spent the early part of his career with Hutchison Whampoa in Hong Kong.

Axby who has been a senior consultant at telecoms consultancy AXA since 1993 will work on a wide range of mobile phone issues including the review of mobile competition call charges and indirect access from networks.

She will also be involved in planning for the licensing of spectrum for 3rd generation multi-media services and integration of fixed and mobile services.

Axby was Cellnets GSM marketing manager between 1990 and 1993. Before that she held marketing and business development positions at BT Mobile.

She has also acted as project manager at Schema for mobile and fixed wire clients in Europe.

Mobile communications is one of the fastest-growing areas in telecommunications. Elaine Axby has a tremendous wealth of experience and knowledge of the mobile communications market that will be invaluable to Oftel said Oftel director general David Edmonds.