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.

Keiron Price (29) pleaded guilty at Horseferry Road Magistrates Court earlier this month to stealing the Nokia handset from a member of staff at Selfridges in Oxford Street on June 12.

Price was followed and detained by store detectives who saw him taking the phone from the side of a cash register.

Consumers text a code number printed inside the chocolate produict wrapper which replies with a Win or Lose message.

Prizes include 5000 cash holidays Microsoft Xboxes tickets to the Commonwealth Games and 100 50 and 25 All:Sports vouchers.

So says a survey on mobile phone theft from CMG the IT solutions company which specialises in mobile business and advanced security.

A third of respondents said that they would be willing to pay a one-off fee of up to 20 for extra security that would make their phone useless to thieves and help to cut the mobile crime rate. Three per cent even said that they would be willing to pay up to 100.

A quarter of respondents said that they had been put off from using their phone in a public place because of the potential for theft.

However 45 per cent said they didnt have any form of security on their mobile phone at all.

Less than half of all respondents had PIN-protected their Sim card.

Only 34 per cent had registered their phones serial number with a network operator which would enable the latter to disable the phone in the event of a theft.

Most respondents (69 per cent) believed that it was the role of the operators rather than the customers to register the phones serial numbers.

But 82 per cent went on to say they believed that operators handset manufacturers retailers the police and the Government had a responsibility to work together to reduce mobile phone theft.

Around 67 per cent of the UKs population currently owns at least one mobile phone said Peter Maathuis director of corporate communications at CMG.

But while the issue of theft is clearly documented the solutions are less well recognised.

We need proactive effort by all the interested parties be they manufacturers or retailers into making the safety of the customer a priority.

There are security solutions already available in the market; we need to communicate these to the customer so that theyre aware of all the options available to them.

Vodafones new Watford concept store was the first to offer Intecs on-site repair service. Customers can bring in faulty handsets for a wait-and-collect service.

We have been planning to move our repair service directly into the consumer arena for some time said Intec business development director Charlo Carabott.

Vodafones new concept stores have provided us with just the retail environment we were seeking. Its customers will be offered a fast turnaround on most repairs often while they wait.

Our accreditation with 16 handset manufacturers enables us to carry parts provide repairs and honour warranties on most popular makes of phone.

Our scanning technology means that we can quickly identify circuit water damage and provide certification for insurance claims adds Carabott.

The new service is called Axxentuate and allows businesses to view all their details from individual calls to overall summaries.

Users can see call statistics and graphs and chart how their bills change from month to month on Axxents website. Axxentuate will be made available to key clients from next month. It works on all networks.

Creditors will hear a full statement of the defunct companys affairs and appoint a liquidator.

Mloop called it a day when its seed capital ran out its planned flotation was abandoned and it was unable to raise any further private finance.

Founder CEO Byron Rose was the main investor. He and his company Fonexco lost 1.5 million.

Other backers included Carphone Warehouse chairman Charles Dunstone.

The main thing that caught us out was the state of the current market and the (slow) speed with which network operators adopted the new way we proposed to transact business said Rose.

However several distributors who tried to use the mloop service reported that online transactions took too long to complete and there were further difficulties because mloop acted as a broker and never owned the product it was trading.

Phones International managing director of distribution John McFarnon said:

I was surprised mloop had gone (into administration) because of the high profile of the people involved.

But I was more surprised at how difficult it was to deal with them. It was impossible to make a transaction.

Mloop never seemed to be aware of whether it had the stock or not.

The process took so long to complete because it never owned the stock. It was merely acting as a broker. So mloop never knew when the stock was going to be released to the buyer.

(see full story P20 and White Lines)

Provisionally entitled If its nicked its knackered the campaign follows Octobers agreement by all four networks to blacklist stolen phones making them inoperable.

The new 2 million campaign will launch in February in London before rolling out across the country. Large retailers such as The Carphone Warehouse and The Link have already made financial contributions to the campaign as have the networks and numerous handset manufacturers. Now Dunstone is calling on independent dealers as well as distributors to back the campaign.

I urge as many as possible to get involved he said.

This campaign will make a significant impact on the reduction of mobile phone crime and will continue the good work we have seen across the industry through 2002.

He went on: There is a now an industry responsibility to communicate the message to as wide an audience as possible that stolen mobile phones will not work. It is something that affects us all.

According to those behind the campaign 40 per cent of street crime is related to mobile phone theft. Since the blacklisting of stolen phones there has been a dramatic decrease in the sale of Sim-only packs – an indication that blacklisting is already preventing people from buying stolen handsets.

The campaign will run across billboards bus stops and buses. In addition there will be information posters that can be displayed in stores.