O2 has been ranked fifth in The Sunday Times 2007 Best Big Companies to Work For List in its first year of participation the highest ever
ranking for a mobile phone operator.

The network was also awarded a two-star accreditation denoting an outstanding company and finished top on the Best for Well Being category as well as being short-listed in the Best for Giving Something Back category.

O2 HR director Dominic Mahoney said: Being the first year weve participated in this and finishing so highly is beyond anything we could of hoped for and whats even more pleasing is its a daily reflection from our people.

Were now looking to develop our People Promises programme which will help our staff develop within the company and maintain their ideas.

Vodafone UK dropped two places from last years list to 15th while The Carphone Warehouse which finished sixth in 2006 and won the Best For Leader award slipped to 13th position.

LG Mobiles Shine handsets is selling more than 4000 per week through The Carphone Warehouse Phones 4U Orange and O2. LG Mobile is telling its channel partners to get their orders in early.

Its Chocolate handset now on prepay has topped one million UK sales since launch. It has sold around 300000 since Christmas.

LG Mobile marketing manager John Bernard said: Shine is the best selling handset on the market retailers are demanding more. The Chocolate is strong in prepay and there is still the Prada phone to come. We are well set for 2007.

He added: We are fulfilling the Shine orders but our customers have to get orders in early.

The Prada phone will not be exclusive to anyone Mobile News understands nor is it expected to ship in the same volume as either the Chocolate or Shine.

PNC obtained judgements from the court against former directors Geremy Thomas and Nigel Etherington for £281750 plus interest since August 2004 worth £66000. Separately it received a further judgement against Etherington for £108000.

Further costs are recoverable from Thomas estimated to be £30000 and Etherington estimated to be £140000.

PNC shareholders claimed a shortfall of £940000 appeared in its accounts after Thomas and Etherington along with another former director Jeff Pack resigned in 2004. Pack repaid money last year.

Thomas the brother of TMTI founder Crispin Thomas and president of TMTI Canada told Mobile News: PNC made five claims against me. They lost on four counts.

The fifth related to monies received by Nigel Etherington not me. I will pay as I was deemed to be joint and severally liable as I was a director when certain change of control agreements were made.

I am seeking to recover these monies from Etherington LLP the law firm that advised me on the transaction.

PNC shareholder Joe Case said: Its been a long time. I asked Geremy Thomas to pay the money back and now he has done.

Currys started selling 3s £15 and £20 monthly tariffs on the Nokia 6288 and Sony Ericsson K610i last month supported by Dextra. It is now set to roll out T-Mobile Vodafone and Orange contract phones. It will also use Dextras sales system Activate for T-Mobile and Vodafone contracts. Orange connections will be made via Orange s online customer registration system Enable.

Currys is paying Dextra a monthly fee for usage. Dealers can use the system for free as part of their Dextra supply deals. Dextra tailored the Activate system to connect all 500 Currys stores to 3. Training will be provided through Dextras field team.

Dextra Airtime head of operations Mark Nightingale said: This is a completely new type of business for us in offering such a managed service. This is the first time that we are working in a partnership where we are not a traditional distributor.

A Currys spokesman said: Mobile is a natural extension to our product range and something that is already successfully integrated into our European operations.

The Dextra system is user-friendly and offers the best value of all the systems we looked at.

The Independent Mobile Phone Dealers Association (IMPDA) has appealed for new members following a difficult start to 2007.

IMPDA member Ben Lloyd asked dealers to come together to fight back against these problems.

We have around 20 dealers registered and were always looking for more. We need dealers to recognise the importance of the IMPDA and how effective it can be.

The aim of the association established in December 2006 is to provide a place for UK mobile phone dealers to come together allowing networks and distributors to discuss issues and help dealers directly.

The target is to improve relationships and cooperation between all three with a long-term view of encouraging networks to work with dealers and not against them as member Ben Lloyd explained.

Its a non-profitable forum and were looking to provide a tool for dealers distributors and networks with our main focus being on the dealers.

To register or for more details visit www.impda.co.uk.

Dealers have welcomed Oranges March cash injection into both its business and consumer tariffs.

Orange put an extra £30 commission into its business tariffs across all its independent partners.

One dealer said: Its good to see Orange backing the channels.

A distributor source said: After four gloomy months its like seeing the first shoots of Spring.

Orange also beefed up its animal consumer tariffs and is reporting good sales across its channels.

Samsung Mobile is looking to double its headcount in Ireland from three to six.

The new recruits will report in to Samsung Mobile country manager for Ireland Martin Elliot.

Samsung Mobile UK and Ireland director Mark Mitchinson is looking to hit 15 per cent market share in Ireland by the end of the year.

Mitchinson said: Were doubling our resources in Ireland under the leadership of Martin Elliot. It represents about three or four per cent of what we do as a whole.

Martins doing a great job and we want to expand the business we do over there.

Samsung opened an office in Dublin in October.

Cornerstone managing director Martin Gray has quit the 20:20 Mobile subsidiary after eight years.

Gray is leaving for personal reasons said a 20:20 spokesman.
20:20 head of operations Bradley Groves takes over

A spokesman said: Gray has successfully led Cornerstone for a number of years. We thank him for his valuable contribution and send him our very best for the future.

3 has announced a partnership with Rhythm New Media which will increase the range of free content on its Planet 3 portal.

The content will be free for customers on the portal and will be supported by personalised advertising from major brands.

The networks ad-funded video content will give brands the opportunity to deliver targeted and personalised advertising to a hard-to-access demographic.

Ad space will also be available to buy based on the demographics of the customer watching it.

3 UK marketing director Graeme Oxby said: Were always looking at ways of bringing new content to Planet 3 things like our mobile games and music are very popular generating millions of downloads. But we also know people want to browse around and watch stuff for free by introducing advertising-supported content we can massively increase the range of video clips available.

Nokia has announced Nokia Advertising Connector and Nokia Ad Service two platforms enabling advertisers and media publishers to connect with mobile.

Nokia Ad Service consists of a group of mobile publishers making up a platform and mobile ad network to deploy and manage advertising campaigns.

It also allows mobile operators access to the mobile advertising model.
A Nokia spokesperson said: Nokia and different ad providers are putting together a package to advertise on mobile devices.

It will be a platform for mobile ads and will be targeted at direct advertisers and media agencies.

Nokia Advertising Connector is a private label service for third party publishers and advertising aggregators which enables targeted ads to be delivered to mobile devices.

Nokia Ad Service will be available globally in the second half of 2007 whilst several pilots will be run on Nokia Advertising Connector in the coming months before it becomes commercially available by the end of this year.