The new clamshell model will take us into a part of market that we havent been in before said Sony Ericsson UK marketing director Peter Marsden.

Clamshell is a very popular style and there are certain customers who walk into a store and want a clamshell no matter what is put in front of them.

A new lighter and thinner version of the P800 is also to be shipped. It will come with a fixed flick-down keypad as well as a metal stylus. Marsden admitted the T300 hadnt sold as well as had hoped but the P800 had fared better than anyone had imagined. (full story P30)

Woods spent the past two years as marketing director for Childrens and Learning at the BBC.

But under a new policy from the start of this month dealers are allowed to offer incentives to customers who are looking at upgrading their current handsets.

According to sales director Stuart Henry the change is designed to allow dealers to build long-term relationships with customers.

One of the aims of the Orange Business Specialist programme is to enable independent retailers that are part of the scheme to build long-term relationships with their customers he said.

Upgrades are an important tool in developing customer relationships he went on and from September 1 Orange Business Specialists will have the ability to offer additional incentives to existing customers who wish to upgrade their handsets.

The move comes as Orange makes a major effort to stop the slide in connections that it suffered last quarter. While O2 and Virgin added around a quarter of a million customers each Orange lost 55000.

(see Orange hikes connection bonus P12)

More than 1.68 billion text messages were sent in July compared with 1.3 billion in July last year and 992 million in July 2001.

The MDA says Julys figure takes the cumulative total for 2003 to 11.6 billion against a 12-month forecast for the year of 20 billion.

The day A-Level results were announced (August 14) saw a rise in the daily average to 67 million compared with 55 million sent last year.

Text messaging is continuing to rise in popularity and diversity commented MDA chairman Mike Short.

As well as person-to-person text messaging we are seeing an increase in interactive text – with programmes such as Fame Academy and Pop Idol providing people with the opportunity to vote via a short code across all networks.

Alexander replaces former operations director John Walsh who left the company in August to fill the same post at Phones 4U.

Alexander started at the start of September and will be responsible for the operational running of The Links distribution network.

Alexander moves internally having been with the Dixons Group for 16 years.

Previously he was Dixons Group distribution and operations director a role he held for three-and-a-half years.

The claim was made by a team of researchers in Israel who were able to hack into the system and listen in to mobile phone calls using a man in the middle device.

The GSM Association said the system would not be able to work outside of a controlled laboratory environment however.

Although the new research goes further than previous academic papers it is nothing new or surprising to the GSM community it said.

The association believes the practical implications of the paper are limited. The association remains vigilant and active in the field of security and encryption.

This commitment is reflected in 3G standards that include more sophisticated security mechanisms that are not susceptible to the type of attack described in this latest paper.

According to the association the code that is being attacked was developed in 1987.

Since then it has been regularly updated with the most recent revamp being announced in July 2002.

The new attack works on a system in which the broadcast from a base station is intercepted by a third device before reaching the handset.

Four group divisions have been created. They are Telecoms Insurance Support and Distribution and Customer Management.

Telecoms runs the fixed offerings Opal and talktalk. Its chief operating officer is David Goldie.

The Insurance division is controlled by Jim Dale who is chairman of CPW Insurance

Support comprises finance (under chief financial officer Roger Taylor) IT (under group IT director Brendan Forster) and HR (under group HR director Richard Smelt).

Distribution and Customer Management runs retail customer management and online operations across the group.

Its chief operating officer is Geoffroy Roux de Bezieux while UK chief executive Andrew Harrison takes charge of the division.

Reporting directly to Harrison are:

Frank McHugh (CEO of CPW UK/CPW Services) Andrew Pinnington (MD of CPW Services) Jonathan Hook (MD for UK Retail) Chris Murton (MD of Online and Insurance) Anabel Hoult (group director of CRM development) Tony Jeffery (director of indirect distribution) Tristia Clarke (director of marketing) Nick Willcox (director of shared services) and Niall McPhee (director of repairs).

The ST55 is exclusive to T-Mobile in its five European markets. It comes with a colour display and integrated camera with a 4x zoom. The phone also features 40-bit polyphonic ringtones.

It will cost 79.99 in the UK.

Carphone Warehouse UK head Andrew Harrison said the level of 3 connections at Carphone Warehouse had dropped from 25 per cent to one per cent because not enough equipment was coming through.

3s new Motorola a920 is selling well but dealers and distributors are saying they cant get enough of the PDA-type handset.

The a920 has been selling really well. Weve had a lot of people come in and take it. Its a good product and people appear to like the touch screen said Paul Leonard of Sprint Communications.

Darren Turgel of Dorsets Planet Communications added: We are selling them as soon as they come in. We do most of our work with business customers and it is a fantastic handset for them. It has so many selling points and there is nothing better than it in the market at the moment.

However he added: Getting enough supplies of kit is a problem and we are waiting for new stock to come in. When we have the stock in we reckon well sell more off it than any other handset.

Bob Sweetlove of 3 distributor Hugh Symons said it was difficult to say how popular the a920 was because while we are shifting everything we get in we dont have large enough volumes to get to the break point to see exactly how much demand there is.

He went on: The handset has a large screen and some good functionality but you also have to remember that the tariff is very appealing. When the new NEC 616 comes out we will probably be able to say more about the a920s popularity.

Ian Robinson of MoCo Cell Link also said he was having trouble getting hold of stock.

A spokesperson for 3 said the network was unaware of any stock shortages and that it had recently ramped up production volumes.

Sony Ericsson had steered away from the clamshell design but following research into its popularity decided to enter the market.

The new GSM/GPRS clamshell handsets are named the z600 and z200. They are aimed at the mid- and high-end of the markets. Both come with colour screens polyphonic ringtones Java games and MMS capabilities.

The z600 is the higher-end model and comes with an integrated camera a ringtone creator programme and Bluetooth. Both models also feature Sony Ericssons Quickshare easy-use programming and come with changeable covers.

The personalisation theme is continued inside both models with a range of pre-embedded colour schemes and screensavers. The z600 also has new racing game V-Rally2 embedded into it.

Sony Ericsson has also launched a bar handset the t230 aimed at the youth market. This has a colour screen polyphonic ringtones and games. It is also MMS-compatible and works with an attachable CommuniCam camera.

All three handsets are set for October release. The z600 will cost the same as the t610 did on release (around 120 on contract). The z200 will be around 150 on pre-pay. The t230 is expected to be a contract phone costing up to 49 depending on subsidy.

Two new entertainment packages were also announced. The Gameboard EGB10 allows the z600 to be used like a games-machine console. The limited edition Bluetooth CAR-100 is a small racing car that can be controlled by a Sony Ericsson handset. It will cost around 100.

An agreement with Turner Broadcasting will also enable Sony Ericsson to offer Cartoon Network content on mobile phones.