Mobile telephony and data solutions provider Redstone has launched an incentive scheme for dealers. The winners will receive a trip with a number of different ski associated activities to a well-known ski destination in January 2007.

To join dealers have to register with Redstone and maximise their 02 connections. The scheme awards points according to the number of 02 upgrades and contracts signed up between September 1 and December 24. All Blackberry connections score double.

Dealers will be placed into leagues allowing a greater chance of winning. Once registered Redstone will confirm which league the dealer is competing in and will issue monthly league tables to allow progress to be monitored.

Derek Williamson has joined T-Mobile as head of business marketing.
Williamson will be responsible for delivering mobile voice and data products and services to SME and corporate customers.

Williamson joins T-Mobile from O2 where he was involved in the early development of its 3G services. He also had roles in the corporate industry sector marketing and business marketing departments at O2.

The sheer scale and speed of the mobile communications industry makes T-Mobile an exciting and challenging place to work said Williamson. I will be dedicated to developing simple innovative and good value mobile products and services that genuinely meet the needs of businesses.

The Carphone Warehouse has confirmed that it has acquired 28 Link stores from O2.

All stores will be re-branded as The Carphone Warehouse. Carphone will take on around 150 Link staff as part of the deal. The acquisition keeps its UK growth plan on track. It is set to open 100 new stores by the end of the year.

Carphone UK CEO Andrew Harrison said: As we further grow our UK store
portfolio and business were delighted to acquire these 28 Link sites. We warmly welcome the teams within these stores to The Carphone Warehouse.

Carphones announcement follows confirmation last week from rival retailer Phones 4U which said it was in discussions with O2 about 11 sites trading as The Link.

A Phones 4U spokesman said: We havent exchanged contracts yet but we are in discussions about 11 stores.

T-Mobile is also understood to be interested in 11 stores. Orange said last week that no contracts had yet been signed with O2 and that the nominal figure of 47 Link stores announced earlier this month could still rise or fall.

Israeli mobile technology company Emblaze has announced its interim results for the six months ending June 30.

The results which were described as ahead of management expectations included a 16-fold increase in total revenue to USD260.9 million (GBP137.5 million) with a net profit of USD11 million. This growth has been largely led by the companys mobile division.

Europe is now the companys largest market with 90 per cent of its sales in the region and more than 60 operators and distributors.

Predicting more growth for the full year CEO Eli Reifman said: As our current main business keeps strong growth and is on track to increased profitability we intend to use our resources to further expand the group via internal developments as well as acquisitions.

Emblaze Mobile has been appointed as ODM supplier to Virgin Mobile for its exclusive Lobster mobile phone range. Reifman said: We still maintain significant investment in R&D for our next generation mobile devices and technologies that we believe will lead to new major contracts and a significant increase in profit margins.

Oranges Unik Phone was launched as a simple and seamless service
yesterday. However it turned out to be complicated and confusing
for the Orange executives when they became increasingly unstuck in the Q&A session of the event held in Paris.

The Unik Phone is designed to combine fixed and mobile services within one handset. Customers will be connected at home via WiFi mode to the Orange Livebox hub and calls are routed through the Internet. Customers using their handset outside the home will have their calls routed through their Orange mobile network.

Sanjiv Ahuja CEO of Orange said: With Unik Phone you can now enjoy the freedom of the Orange mobile network and get even better value when youre at home. With one phone one number one address book and one bill were making it simpler more convenient and more cost effective for our customers communicate.

However when scrutinised all scenarios presented to Sanjiv Ahuja and Didier Lombard President and the director General of the France Telecom group by commentators at the launch appeared to be less cost effective for customers who had families. As Unik will only be available on Canary 50 or Panther 65 tariffs it means customers who have families would have to pay at least 50 per handset per month in the UK.

Unik is available in France now and will be launched in the UK in November under the name Unique. The Orange executives promised a family option to be available next year.

From today (September 28) NTL is offering consumers a quad-play service including digital TV broadband Internet access fixed line and mobile telephony for GBP40 a month.

The company which bought Virgin Mobile along with a 10-year licence to market under the Virgin brand claims that the service dubbed 4 for GBP40 could cut household bills by as much as GBP400 a year.

The mobile part of the service offers a Virgin Mobile SIM 300 texts and 300 talktime minutes. This tariff is now also available to any existing cable TV customer for an extra GBP10 a month.

NTL Telewest chief operating officer Neil Berkett said: Its more than just another cut-price offer because it also equips customers for the possibilities presented as these different technologies increasingly interact.

Vodafone has unveiled its first Vodafone-only branded 3G consumer handset the Vodafone 710 manufactured by Chinese firm Huawei Technologies.

The networks first move into the 3G consumer space is part of a strategy to use its clout with third-party manufacturers to deliver cheaper handsets to users and compete with major global players.

The handset features services including Vodafone Radio DJ mobile TV music downloads video telephony and Vodafone live! 3G. It also includes an MP3 music player a 1.3 megapixel camera and Bluetooth.

Offered on pre-pay as well as contract in the UK Germany Spain Italy Ireland Greece Netherlands Romania and Portugal it will be available from early October 2006.

Vodafone global director of terminals Jens Schulte-Bockum said: Our first own-branded 3G consumer handset supports Vodafones commitment to drive 3G penetration across our customer base and the fact the Vodafone 710 will be available as pre-pay in many markets will help to achieve this.

An NTL executive is joining i-mate as new finance director after the departure of incumbent Ian Cameron.

Gregor McNeil 35 is currently cable finance director at NTL and will join i-mate on January 1.

He will replace Cameron who is stepping down for personal reasons and returning to Scotland.

I-mate chairman Bernhard Cragg said: On behalf of the board I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ian for all his hard work during what has been a tremendous period of change for the company. We wish him well in all his future endeavours.

Research carried out at this months Mobile Content World conference has revealed dissatisfaction among mobile content providers with current operator behaviour and also some gloom about the future of the segment.

More than 60 per cent of respondents believe that the transaction fees charged by operators (40-50 per cent) are too high and consider these should be cut by at least half within the next three years.

Another clear majority (58 per cent) in the survey carried out by mobile payments company Valista believe that less than 25 per cent of total operator revenue will come from mobile content in three years time. Worse a sizeable minority (15 per cent) believe it will only be 10 per cent of total revenue.

This flies in the face of more optimistic forecasts notably a survey by iGillott Research that mobile content will make up 40 per cent of revenue by 2009 and is bad news for networks already concerned about falling voice revenues.

Other findings include the fact that more than 65 per cent believe direct-to-bill charging will replace premium SMS in the short term while the most popular content will be mobile TV and video.

According to Valista vice-president Arlene Adams operators needed to look at more innovative merchandising and marketing to drive uptake as well as product bundling and more flexible pricing.

She said: Currently operators take the greatest share of mobile content revenue but the distribution of power could shift. Consolidation and the entrance of major consumer brands will shape the future value chain and operators need to balance recouping revenues with the desire to maximise their share in the long run.

The new field technology from AMT-SYBEX is being issued to MET traffic wardens on Londons Red Routes.

The MDAIIIs which replace traditional paper-based reporting systems are pre-loaded with TfL map data and include cameras and come with Bluetooth printers.