Theres certainly a big challenge here at Ora and Im looking forward to be part of it said McLuskie.

Ora has just won a big contract to supply BTCellnet with accessories.

Said a Virgin spokesperson:

Were ahead of forecast and ahead of expectations. Theres been a good mix across the range. Obviously the cheaper handsets have sold most but weve been selling handsets across the price range. The volume of internet sales has come as a surprise. We were doing 20 per cent of sales before Christmas via the web. We forecast between five per cent and 10 per cent in the post launch period moving towards 20 at the end of the first year. Our aim was to get 25 per cent of sales on the web by the end of our first year. Were nearly there already.

Orange led the way with a record 1.22 million Just Talk pre-pay customers in the last three months of 1999 with 856000 new users attracted to the network in December.

Vodafone posted a record quarterly increase of over 1.075 million net new customers with a million of these choosing the pre-paid Pay as You Talk service. More than 4.2 million customers now use PAYT.

One 2 One recorded a 106 per cent increase of 903000 net customer connections over the same period in 1998 and more than doubled its customer base to 4.157000 customers by the end of last year. One 2 One now has 54 per cent of its total base on pre-pay

BTCellnet reported one million new customers for Q4 up 343000 on the same period in 1998.

The network also says that its Genie internet service provision business has registered 400000 users with subscriber levels growing at more than 2000 a day.

Oranges customer base more than doubled last year to five million users. A total of 2.73 million net new customers were added in 1999 compared with 962000 in 1998.

During the last year 769000 net new customers joined Orange on contract tariffs. Oranges contract base is now 2.45 million (or half of the total base) an increase of 46 per cent over the year.

For 1999 as a whole Orange added 1.96 million net new pre-pay customers compared with 471000 in 1998. Its total pre-pay customer base is now 2.45 million. Overall churn fell three per cent to 15.8 per cent including a small reduction in contract churn to 20. per cent for the 12 months to 31 December 1999.

Pre-pay churn fell 4.1 per cent to 8.8 per cent largely as a result of the accelerating growth in this segment.

1999 has been a phenomenal year for Orange said Hans Snook Orange chief executive officer and group managing director.

One in 12 people in the UK are now Orange customers. We have achieved clear leadership in the contract market throughout the year and an astounding performance in the pre-pay market following the launch of our new Just Talk package said Snook.

BTCellnet however says it is absolute leader for post-pay customers with 3.93 million users.

One 2 One managing director Tim Samples stated:

We have seen unprecedented levels of growth this year more than doubling our customer base and breaking through the four million mark.

We have an overall 17 per cent market share and are working on new initiatives which will see One 2 One continue to drive a growing share of the market.

The fault is in the software of a small batch of a few hundred phones that were distributed before Christmas.

The problem prevented customers from being able to top-up or activate their phones. If they tried to activate the phone responded with an unable to connect message. However those that persisted found they could still make calls for free.

Around 500 customers called BTCellnets Customer Care team to report the phones as faulty. Most of the callers were unaware that they could still make calls for free.

We have identified the handsets affected and we are arranging replacements for these customers said BTCellnet spokesman Dave Massey.

It is a handset fault. Not a fault with the network link/network intelligence. The message appearing on the phone screen when they try to activate the phone was unable to connect. This prompted many of them to phone us before attempting to make calls.

This is the third time BTCellnet has suffered from pre-pay hardware glitches. The first Philips Digas and later Siemens C12 phones could be retro-fitted with illegal chips that reset the credit counter to zero when the phone was turned off and back on.

BTCellnet is the only network afflicted by these problems as much of the pre-pay billing intelligence is in the handsets. On the other networks all the billing is controlled by the network.

Latimer will join Oranges executive management board and will be responsible for overseeing Oranges global expansion.

Tuckers final departure date depends on whether or not Vodafone Airtouchs Mannesman take-over bid succeeds. If they do win on February 7 he be free to go immediately. If Mannesmann triumphs it will take a few weeks longer. Tucker who was the engineering brains behind the Orange network is believed to not be short of firm options for future employment. None of which are with UK mobile operators. Not that he needs the money. His Orange share options are estimated to be worth more than 2 million.

The cartridge reads and stores the phones credit and SIM card info. When the phones credit runs out the phone is switched off. The cartridge is reinserted and the credit is back on the phone.

The cartridges are being sold for 100 each dropping to 50 each for orders over 10. Unblocker Software and leads for both c12 and Diga are being sold for 500

The web site states:

We are well aware that you may consider this to be a scam due to all the recent scams concerning mobile phones and sky hacks Our only answer is If you were thinking this way Dont jump in with both feet buy one cartridge to test (cont P2) the water. At least this way you can test us with minimum risk If you like what you get then deal with us If not then Im sure well be flamed on the newsgroups and this site will fall into oblivion.

The sellers of the device say:

If the phone becomes blocked by your service provider its not a problem just place the cartridge in the base of the phone power up the phone (with full battery) and press hot key 9 at the same time and wait for 20 seconds

This will allow the cartridge to do its job and hey presto your back on line with the same number and credit. If you wish to put extra credit on the phone this can be done as well.

Warning! each cartridge is unique to the first phone its introduced to so if you try to put the cartridge in another phone it will display contact your dealer. This is unrecoverable

The phones with their cartridges have even sent some abroad to India Pakistan Germany France and Tenerife.

All phones worked fine say the cartridge sellers.

We could make calls back to the UK but could not make Internal calls in the countries we tried. Except of course the UK where you can make as many calls to who ever and where ever you like.

Vodafone has launched a 1.5 million advertising campaign at Heathrow Airport.

It includes exterior poster sites escalator panels and sites above shops in the main buildings.

An estimated 61.5m visitors pass through Heathrow Airport each year.

The campaign features Nervous System depicting a human body.

The second advertisement Vodafone Spoken Here majors on the fact that Vodafone claims to have the most roaming agreements world-wide and claims that no mobile phone network covers more countries.

Anthony Ledwith of Sprint in Greenford Middlesex was alone in the shop when a coloured man dressed in puffer jacket trainers and jeans came in and asked to look at a phone.

He then jumped over (cont P2)the counter and threatened Ledwith with the screwdriver before stealing 500 of pre-pay vouchers and five Bosch and Ericsson phones.

The assailant told Ledwith Im here to rob you and ordered him to stay in the back room.

Without notice Cellnet issued a notice demanding a commission clawback of 500000 in October 1999 (cont P2).

The clawback pertains to Line Advance contracts where TCL sold the wrong handsets to customers. BT Cellnets Line Advance package comes with the option of specific handset models.

BTCellnet said:

All retailers were made aware of these terms. TCL were given a significant period of time in which to dispute or negotiate a settlement. They chose to do the latter. The three Line Advance packages included the Ericsson GA628 Ericsson S868 and the Nokia 5110 handset. In November 1999 this changed to two handsets the same Nokia and the Ericsson A1018s.

The network says it had no notification from TCL that it wasnt selling the specified handsets.

Commission said BTCellnet was based on agreed target levels for sales of specified products and packages.

If the specified packages arent sold then commission isnt appropriate. If a customer requests a non approved handset this then means it is no longer a BTCellnet Advance package and could not be sold on that basis.

Dealers and retailers do of course have the right to sell their own packages. But they cannot describe them as an advertised BTCellnet package.

TCL was connecting between 1000 and 15000 phones a month with most of the business going to Securicor Cellular Services.

After BTCellnet invoked its clawback the company found there was a shortfall of 150000 in cashflow. The bank turned them down for finance. A purchaser is now being sought for the 41 retail shops.

Virgin and Tesco are part of SpectrumCo a consortium formed by the Virgin group along with with Nextel Sonera EMI and private equity funds.

Other entrants to the auction apart from the four existing UK networks are 3G (owned by Irish telcom Eilrcom) Crescent Wireless (owned by shareholders with significant interests in Global Crossing which bought Racal Telecom) Epsilon Tele.Com (a subsidiary of Japanese finance house Nomura) NTL Mobile (jointly owned by NTL and France Telecom) One Tel Global Wireless (Australian-based telco) TIW UMTS (a subsidiary of Canadian telco TIW which also owns the UK TETRA operator Dolphin) Telefonica (Spanish and Latin American network operator) and WorldCom Wireless (a subsidiary of global telco MCI Worldcom).

The licences are expected to be awarded to the highest bidders in March. The final list of applicants who will qualify to take part in the auction will be confirmed in February following the completion of checks on applications.

The Government will auction five licences for blocks of spectrum for 3G services. The licence with the largest amount of spectrum is reserved for a new entrant to the UK mobile telecoms market. The minimum bid for the the five licences totals 500 million.

The main auction will take place over a number of rounds possibly lasting several weeks in total. Information on the progress of the auction including the most recent bids made by each bidder and the licence it is bidding for will be published on the auction website (http://www.spectrumauctions.gov.uk) shortly after the end of each round.

Out goes current managing director Tim Samples to be temporarily replaced by Kai-Uwe Ricke currently MD of Deutsche Tele-koms T-Mobile subsidiary.

Samples leaves One 2 One at the end of the month. Ricke (38) will have his seat while a permanent successor is sought

Ricke has headed T-Mobile since 1998 and has narrowed the market share differential with rival D2 Mannesmann. T-Mobile had 9.1 million customers at the end of last year making it one of Europes biggest mobile operators.

One 2 One is one of the most essential elements in Deutsche Tele-koms international strategy. I am looking forward to setting the direction for the business as part of the overall T-Mobile International venture and directing One 2 Ones continued aggressive growth in the UK said Ricke.