Reporting to fellow American One 2 One MD Harris Jones Richardson will have responsibility for all aspects of sales marketing and customer equipment.

Richardson moves into the spot vacated by commercial director Richard Shearer last year.

Joint administrator Andrew Hosking from HLB Kidsons told Mobile News:

We are very optimistic. A number of major parties are still demanding more information including square footage details for every shop from us but we believe this matter will be concluded by the end of the week.

Hosking confirmed he was looking at a number of options. Some parties are interested only in buying a few of the shops from 10 to 60. We continue to work towards our goal which is the disposal of the business as a going concern.

We have had offers from businesses working across a variety of industries which are interested in The Phone Peoples property portfolio but I would think the chain is likely to remain within the mobile phone industry.

Adds Hosking We have had a lot of good support from Orange One 2 One and Vodafone for which we are grateful. Landlords are continuing to support us the staff has been paid and we continue to trade. So its not a question of our being quietly optimistic we are very optimistic that there will be a sale of either all or a significant part of the companys property portfolio.

We are now looking at making an announcement in a matter of days rather than weeks.

Phone People went into administration last month after an equity-swap deal with Manchester service provider Yes Telecom collapsed.

Yes had tried to keep the company going for a month.

The Help At Hand campaign includes three different 20 television commercials again starring Hamish Clark of Monarch of the Glen TV series.

The commercials promote more services such as Vodafones new Text Directory Enquiry Service which texts numbers into a phones memory and the AA Vodafone Personal Roadwatch.

Gross service revenue for the fourth quarter was $1.1 million. Net revenue including royalty income from phone sales and less discounts and promotions was also $1.1 million. But Globalstar has suspended indefinitely principal and interest payments on all of its funded debt.

The suspension of these payments will reduce the companys payments by approximately $400 million for the year 2001 but has led to some debt default.

According to its fourth quarter financial figures Globalstar recorded a total of 2.6 million minutes of use including both mobile and fixed service.

In the final week of March the company recorded over 394000 minutes of use up 66 per cent over the highest traffic week in 2000. The estimated number of mobile and fixed subscribers at the end of 2000 was 30583. The mobile and fixed subscriber total as of March 18 2001 was 40009. Growth in minutes used is in most geographic areas that have inadequate or non-existent cellular network coverage such as Brazil Canada Russia and Australia.

Vertical industries such as transportation maritime and natural resource exploration represent significant opportunities for us in terms of high-subscriber high-usage customers and we are working with our service providers to redirect efforts and resources towards these potential customers said Tony Navarra president of Globalstar.

The early response we have seen to the introduction of data services has encouraged us to put more focus on this area as well. We also continue to see growing acceptance of our service.

Globalstar is owned by a consortium of telcos and equipment manufacturers including co-founders Loral Qualcomm Incorporated; Alenia; China Telecom; Hyundai and Vodafone Group.

This follows One 2 Ones launch in Northern Ireland last month.

There is just one tariff of 15p a minute for the first five minutes of use each day and 5p a minute after that. There is no line rental no monthly contract and free voicemail.

All calls from a Virgin Mobile phone located anywhere in the UK to any phone in the Republic of Ireland will be charged at a flat rate of 15p a minute at all times.

Virgin Mobiles range of phones and airtime vouchers will be available in both the Belfast and Derry Virgin Megastores and five Our Price stores in Newton Abbey Bangor Newry Craigavon and Belfast. Phones will also be on sale in selected Sainsburys Co-ops and ToysRUs. Virgin Mobiles pre-pay vouchers will be available from those stores as well as more than 80 Post Offices.

The promotion entitled everyone buying a mobile phone on any network in the run up to Christmas to a free Party Anthems CD. At the end of the CD customers learned whether or not they had won. Pouland bought the winning mobile phone and CD from the Arndale Centre store in Manchester.

The Carphone Warehouses new management team introduce themselves to shareholders. OK … were making that bit up. But for those of you who didnt join 4500 people at CPWs Hollywood-themed Ball on October 20 this is the kind of celluloid fantasy you missed.

For its European Trusted Brands Survey 2001 Readers Digest surveyed 17027 people in 18 European countries including Central and Eastern Europe.

Respondents were asked to name their most trusted brands in 18 sectors.

For the mobile phone category Nokia scored 37 per cent share of the UK vote. In joint second place were Orange and Motorola with 12 per cent each. Vodafone and Ericsson were joint third with 10 per cent each.

Around 85 per cent of respondents gave Nokia four or five out of five for quality.

Respondents were drawn from the Readers Digest database of 5.4 million Europeans. A total of 17027 questionnaires were returned with 1024 coming from the UK.

According to the survey the top eight brands in Europe were Nokia (mobile phones) sony (hi fi – and audio) Nivea (cosmetics and skincare) Canon (cameras) Colgate (toothpaste) IBM (computers) Ariel (soap powder) and LOreal (hair care).

Nokia has a tremendous share in the market. We want to get some share from them. We are becoming more confident with our product line-up. People are becoming very familiar with the brand due to sponsorship and advertising. SL45 and S45 are desirable products and meet the latest technical requirements. The C45 will be heavily promoted by Siemens network operators and retailers before Christmas said Bate.

The C45 will be up there against the likes of the Nokia 3330. We are looking forward to a successful Christmas. We have full order books for the product.

Siemens C45 is the first Siemens phone with fully interchangeable front and back fascias and customisable software. Users can create fully personalised CLIPit covers and download ringtones screensavers and bitmapped images from a new Siemens website at www.my-siemens.com/city.

Siemens will share revenue from downloaded ringtones and bitmapped images with network operators and retailers. For launch Siemens says hundreds of ringtones will be available including music from the charts.

The C45 is the first Siemens handset to support EMS enhanced messaging which allows users to attach pictures and ringtones to text messages. Ericsson and Nokia have already introduced EMS-compatible handsets in to the market.

Siemens will be adding other products to the range. In the coming months C45 will be joined by SL45i SL42 S40 and SX45. SL45i is an updated version of the SL45i MP3 phone running Java. Siemens says it is working with over 200 developers to develop Java location based services information and games applications before the launch of SL45i. SL42 will be a version of the SL45 without an MP3 player and pitched at a significantly lower price point. S40 is the Bosch-developed tri-band phone compatible with high-speed data.

TAP will include leaflets promoting MEND in the packaging of its accessory products.

This will allow TAP customers to register their mobile phones with the MEND system at preferential rates. Registration can be done on the internet or by telephone.

MEND is based in Gloucestershire. It allows people to register their equipment by make model IMEI and serial number.

Finders of lost equipment can either use a free phone number or a web site to instigate the return of the property to its owner.

The MEND system has been designed with the assistance of the police major transport organisations and the insurance industry.

Recipero says it will have more than 50000 users registered on the database by the end of the year.

In a similar move key and bike recovery company Tag-It Finder Systems has launched a Tag-It Phone-Finder Voucher.

The voucher can be purchased for around 25p and assures the finder of the lost item of a 5 reward.

Over one million Tag-Its in all forms have been supplied with customers as diverse as Iveco Ford to Anadin pain relief tablets.