Mainline recently told its dealer managers to include Blueprint marketing activity. Laise was unhappy with the arrangement and left.

We want to help our dealers generate footfall generate more upgrade opportunities and find ways to sell to corporates said new Mainline marketing boss Chris Breslin who joined the company last month (Mobile News September 2).

It is a complex education process for both the dealer and dealer manager.

I can understand why some people might find the new role daunting added Breslin.

The development marks is significant achievement for the Mobie-shop-backed venture that bought ETs UK operation off the receivers in June 2002.

European Telecom had been one of Oranges closest partners but the network refused to work with new owners.

Subsequent attempts by the new ET to persuade Orange to distribute through them also failed leaving ET only distributing on behalf of T-Mobile.

Im delighted that O2 see us as a valuable distribution partner for the future said European Telecom managing director John Drinkwater.

Our expertise in stock and billing management puts us in an ideal place to offer a broad range of products and services to our dealer partners. The agreement and this is a key step in the right direction.

O2 general manager for channel marketing Ian Driver said:

Following a series of meetings we believe European Telecom can acquire and manage high value customers through focusing on solution selling and added value services. This will be achieved through working together on training and education programmes for ET staff and stockists.

It is getting better now. But my staff are still spending over an hour on the phone in order to connect an Orange customer said John George managing director of West Country dealer JAG Communications (see White Lines).

We have 41 stores which means we are wasting thousands of hours on the phone each month. The problems started about the same time as Orange allowed people to port from Just Talk to contract.

George said Orange told him network problems were responsible for the delays.

KEB in Sussex said it had experienced similar problems.

The situation is ridiculous and it seems there is nothing you can do about it said KEB managing director Kevin Billington.

Gone are the days when we could connect in a matter of seconds or minutes. Now we have customers going out of the store and coming back a couple of hours later.

It can be quite embarrassing at times. But Ive been told by Orange it is going to be taking on more staff.

Geoff Allen of Planet Communications said:

We have been experiencing the problem on upgrades.

Before we would be annoyed if it took 10 minutes to complete an upgrade.

Now we are having to wait 45 minutes on average.

Bad as the situation is dealers say it is actually an improvement on the several hours of delays that some dealers were experiencing two months ago.

Orange was unable to comment at the time of going to press.

Eight brand managers have been recruited to work across geographic areas.

They will drive to shops in Siemens-branded Mini Coopers and will aim to improve ties with retailers and increase the recommendations of Siemens products. The team will provide dealers with support including in-store training and information on Siemens products.

The team is being run by national field manager Graham Bentley who recently moved to Siemens from Cityphone where he was national sales manager.

Rocom has been defending a 1 million clawback dispute over irregular connections through two of its former dealers because it alleges Orange employees authorised the deals.

The amount owed has slowly reduced to 500000 because Rocom connected handsets in stock.

Rocom chairman Bob Old lodged a counter-claim because he alleges that Orange employees are to blame for the situation.

The connections were mismanaged by Orange staff said Old. Orange has expressly denied this.

We have set out to prove there has been interference with the account. We have provided evidence to Orange which it has the right to investigate Old told Mobile News.

Orange sales head Stuart Henry said:

We are not walking away from Rocom.

We are adamant that it owes us a significant amount of money.

It is adamant that while it might owe it it does not think it is fair that it should pay it.

As well as normal public use the cab will also be used by The Carphone Warehouse for ferrying VIPs to and from the companys HQ

The 15-year-old girl who cannot be named for legal reasons had previous convictions for theft and attempted robbery.

Passing sentence Judge Linda Stern QC said:

These very serious offences of street robbery are an absolute plague.

The new swipe cards have been sent out to 400000 Virgin Mobile customers and will also shortly be available for T-Mobile pre-pay users.

The cards can be activated by store staff or the customer who dial 150 key in the card number and receive confirmation for top-up.

Said e-pay sales director Andrew Dellow: This means retailers will be able to convert all pre-pay customers currently buying vouchers over to electronic top-ups. The activation process takes only a matter of seconds and means customers can make use of their new e-top-up card immediately.

Margins are expected to be at or above 20 per cent reflecting good take-up of new products such as the 7650 imaging phone.

European demand picked up in July and August and Nokia is confident it will have achieved its estimate of 400 million handset sales by the end of this year.

Nokias infrastructure division Nokia Networks will not do so well. A decline in network capital expenditure on GSM means Nokias Q3 sales of infrastructure equipment will be down by around five per cent.

The new group which says it has attracted support from 100 dealers will focus purely on the interests of independent dealers who say they have felt increasingly marginalised.

Independent Dealer Group chairman Paul Hull said:

Independent dealers are facing a multitude of threats in the mobile marketplace and need to restate their value to the network operators which are both oursuppliers and our competitors said Hull.

Publicly the networks claim to be valuing the market contribution of the independent yet in the marketplace they are undercutting our ability to trade.

This is in turn pushing independents to resort to churn tactics to gain income which in the long term does not benefit anyone.

See White Lines.