London, Aug 03: A day after NRI entrepreneur Arun Sarin took over as its chief, Vodafone, the mobile phone giant, is preparing to takeover Project Telecom, the troubled mobile services provider valued at 145 million pounds. The project was until recently among the most admired of the new breed of niche telecoms operators but was forced to issue a profits warning in April.

It provides mobile services to companies by buying minutes of airtime from network operators and reselling them with handsets, as well as providing billing and other services. It also supplies fixed communication services through an agreement with Energis, the telecoms business spun out of national grid.

Vodafone is the best owner of the company, as its network handles about 160,000 of project's customers, the Sunday Telegraph observed today.

It has been hit by increasing price competition in the business mobile market. Last year, the company abandoned the high volume but low margin business of providing pre-paid voucher and handsets. Although that foray was seen as a setback, it was felt the project's management would be able to bring the company through. Bureau Report