Dolphin's Tetra network bubble bursts

Telco to cut a third of its workforce.

Dolphin Telecom's dream of building a pan-European digital Tetra mobile network is crumbling, with the announcement that it is making almost a third of its workforce redundant.

The company, owned by Canada-based TIW, says it is cutting 600 of its 1900 staff because of the worsening telecoms market and the fact that it has run out of cash for expanding its network.

Dolphin's handsets allow companies to control mobile costs by allowing calls to be made among groups of users over Dolphin's Tetra radio network.

The service was launched in late 1999 but, despite a heavy advertising campaign, Dolphin had only signed up 50,000 users by the end of 2000.

The vast majority of these are in the UK, with Dolphin offering 96 per cent UK Tetra coverage. Dolphin corporate users include WH Smith, the British army, the Metropolitan Police and Unigate.

Despite the cutbacks, Dolphin is still "confident" that it can meet targets of signing up an extra 100,000 customers by the end of the year, but it is not clear what will happen if it fails to do so.