Cellstar UK managing director David Aitken confirmed that there had been no formal offers made for the company as yet.

No buyer has been found for the company and an orderly wind-down is taking place. We will continue to trade for at least another few months. No closure date has been determined yet.

The news comes as Vodafone appointed Fone Logistics to take over Cellstars UK Distribution Agreement. The agreement took effect from the beginning of this month.

Fone Logistics will take possession of Cellstars Vodafone dealer base which joins its expanding dealer network.

CellStars US parent company decided to shut its UK Argentina and Peru distribution businesses in June due to heavy losses (Mobile News June 10). CellStar will now focus on Asia Mexico and the US.

Cellstars UK division went into the red due to falling margins and bad debts totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from defunct companies such as Odyssey and The WAP store. Cellstar executives also admitted that Cellstar had not been profitable in the UK because it couldnt compete with UK-based distribution companies.

One-Tel which buys airtime from Vodafone is a subsidiary of the Centrica group which includes the AA British Gas and Goldfish.

The new network says it will instead look to off-the-page and sales to existing Centrica group customers.

We will concentrate on off-the-page selling for the most part and our relationships with existing Centrica customers for future sales. We used off-the-page with One-Tel to build up a strong membership of about 850000 customers.

With the Centrica database we have access to two-thirds of the UK population Hendey says.

The company has already been contacted by a number of retailers looking for partnerships but no agreements have been struck.

Hendey insists the company will not set up retail stores of its own.

Being part of the Centrica group will allow it to target customers of other groups as well as offer incentives to existing group customers.

Another benefit One-Tel can offer is that we can reroute mobile customers through fixed lines so that we can offer international calls on mobiles and fixed lines at the same price.

We now have fixed-line narrowband broadband and mobile services so if we want to we can bundle a whole range of incentives such as voice and internet together. But this is for the future.

We are being told that consumers arent that interested in mobile data packages.

The new MVNO will be handling billing and other customer services itself. With one of the lowest line rentals it seems to be targeting the same pre-pay and low-spend contract user that makes up Virgin Mobiles 1.75-million customer base.

A lot of people are saying that we are going after the Virgin market but we are not just going for its customers.

We did a lot of market research and found that a lot of consumers dont understand what they are paying for.

There is a fair amount of confusion out there. We are targeting any consumer who has used pre-pay and is unhappy with the scheme but doesnt feel comfortable with the high cost of line rentals that the networks offer.

We are also looking at the contract customer who is unhappy with the high tariffs.

Hendey rejects any suggestion that the One-Tel name is too weak to make any impact in the market:

One-Tel is a very powerful brand name. We have a 40 per cent national awareness and considering most of our advertising has been done in the south this is very high. We are still in the process of rolling out the brand Hendey adds.

The deal between Vodafone UK and Centrica-owned One-Tel is essentially a new-style of distribution for Vodafone where One-Tel is using the Vodafone network to provide the service. As host operator Vodafone is not providing any services. One-Tel will provide services such as customer support.

It is the first such agreement for Vodafone UK in a post-pay environment.

Rival MVNO Virgin Mobile issued a press statement warning people to do their sums before choosing to go with One-Tel.

Customers on the One-Tel tariff will pay nearly 5 a month before even making a call. Virgin Mobile has no contract to sign. One-Tel says in its advertising being fleeced by your mobile deal? Maybe it should ask itself the same question said the Virgin statement.

Elizabeth France currently the Information Commissioner for the UK will join the new Telecommunications Ombudsman Service in October.

This will be a resolution service covering disputes between fixed and mobile telephone providers and their customers.

It will also cover associated services such as voicemail and call forwarding.

Financial controller Peter Scheldt said Fonekit is restructurin to boost its expansion plans.

The parent company is remortgaging the buildings so that we move from fascias and to more sophisticated technologies. We may have people chasing us for money. That is the same for any business in the country.

Its assets were subsequently bought by Far East accessory firm Acson as a going concern.

An application to take the company into liquidation was made in March by creditor Equator (AG) for 83412. The courts granted the order and subsequently the company went into liquidation.

It is now understood that the liquidated company doesnt have any valuable assets and that it is unlikely that any of the unsecured creditors will get any dividends.

Should any assets become available then dividends will be paid to Oras 164 creditors.

The insolvency agency now has to carry out an investigation into the trading of Ora. This includes checking to see that accounts and records were properly maintained. After that the agency will apply to the Secretary of State to release it as liquidators.

Acson has a relatively low profile in the UK in the three years it has been established here. It was set up as a subsidiary of the Singapore-based holding company which has been going for nine years.

Acson has two factories in Singapore and a retail chain of 50 stores throughout Asia.

Over 2500 respondents interviewed. Respondents were aged 18-45 BC1 reflecting a range of attitude and aptitude relating to the use of wireless communications technology

The 200000 Detica research project which costs 395 to buy was undertaken with consumers over 12 months. It included mock-up applications for the financial services entertainment and travel sectors using demonstration 3G devices.

Over 77 per cent of those surveyed found the individual services either appealing or highly appealing. More than 70 per cent claim that they are likely to use similar services when they become generally

The research shows consumers are willing to ditch existing relationships if their preferred brands do not offer 3G services.

In the case of Financial Services 82 per cent of people polled said they expected these services to be offered by their bank.

After companies were burned by the failure of WAP to achieve widespread adoption many are playing a waiting game to watch what happens to those who go first with 3G said Detica head of research Jeremy Braune.

Barriers to 3G adoption concerning 3G devices themselves. Users are concerned with worries cost battery capacity handset fragility speed security the user interface.

Consumers were concerned that when buying services they could not feel sure that their instructions had been received or actioned appropriately.

The key to maximising acquisition and retention will be to adopt a similarly segment-specific approach to the development of individual services and the sales marketing and support infrastructures that underpin them.

A one size fits all approach will not be capable of maximising market potential said Braune.

In Germany 150000 people bought live! handsets while 60000 Italians connected to the service

We are on track to achieve our target of a million sales to customers by the end of March said Vodafone Group chief executive Chris Gent.

In a press release commenting on the substantial completion of its general overall restructuring programme the company announced plans to reduce its workforce by approximately an additional 7000 positions worldwide.

According to the release the job losses will impact all business segments and corporate headquarters. The biggest job losses are said to come in the US while the worst hit sector is said to be the cellular networks were there will be 3000 losses. The redundancies started last week and will continue until the end of the year.

At present Motorola employs over 5000 staff in the UK with 16 facilities. Around 1400 staff are employed at the companys cellular network operations in Swindon while another 1100 are employed in its two offices in Basingstoke. Its largest operation is in East Kilbride where 1600 are employed at its semi-conductor manufacturing plant.

Under the scheme customers will be able to buy top-up vouchers in over 250000 shops across Europe. Countries included in the scheme include Germany Greece Ireland Italy Portugal Spain and the UK.

The top-up system is the same across all countries with customers buying vouchers and then dialling the same top-up number they would at home.

Orange said:

Orange.Net was set up with customers receiving Orange.net services at no cost.

Users of Orange.net are not necessarily Orange customers and able to use many valuable services free of charge. We wish to continue to offer this service. To do sowe must recoup costs in some way. Customers are able to report complaints by email.