The service allows any voicemail 901 user to have professionally recorded greetings from impressionists who assume the voices of celebrities such as Big Brother Darth Vader Ali G or characters from The Simpsons and ask callers to leave a message.

There are now more advanced and secure algorithms but many operators are choosing not to upgrade their current algorithms either out of ignorance or as a misguided cost-saving measure.

Cloning of GSM handsets is rare but it is getting easier and easier to carry out says Daniel Winterbottom author of the report: Minimising the Fraud Risk in Next Generation Networks.

Operators which continue to use compromised algorithms will find that incidents of cloning on their network and the related losses will rise significantly he says.

There is now a technique that can crack a Sim card within minutes of access to it.

The power consumption of the Sim card is monitored while certain instructions are run through the circuit allowing the data to be analysed and the Sim card cloned.

Significant danger is represented by the cloning of handsets. The potential losses will increase massively as m-commerce applications become more commonplace.

Users will be able to transfer money out of their bank accounts and make payments for goods and services through their handset. Without careful planning operators will find that their customers become the victims of huge losses and the liability for the losses will rest squarely on the telcos shoulders says Winterbottom.

Traditional types of fraud still exist and the majority of operators have shown themselves to be ineffectual in curbing them.

The development of next-generation networks offers huge potential for revenue generation but the amount of risk operators will expose themselves to will also increase dramatically Winterbottom adds (see Sharp End P46).

The report by Continental Research found consumers were less likely to mention O2 and T-Mobile than BTCellnet and One 2 One when asked to name a network operator.

Sixty per cent of T-Mobile users named picked One 2 One when asked to recall the name of an operator. There was worse news for O2 as 78 per cent of its users picked BTCellnet.

Alarmingly for O2 the study found that only 39 per cent of its users identified it when asked to name any one network. This compares to 95 per cent of Orange customers and 93 per cent of Vodafone users who knew the name of their network.

The results showed that Orange is the best known brand. It is followed by Vodafone which has over 10 per cent less recognition.

Carphone Warehouse has been involved in distribution since it took over Tandy and has traded through its MobileXpress division for the past three years.

But the distribution arm has always operated at a very low-key level and kept itself at a distance from the retail side of operations.

We are not changing our retail strategy at all and we are not gearing up to try and attract new sectors of the market said a Carphone Warehouse spokesperson.

We are trying to attract more customers but these will be of a similar profile to the ones we have at the moment – the small dealers who are unable to get a couple of handsets here and there.

We will still be selling end-of- line or reconditioned stock; stock that is easy for us to pass on. Again there is no change of strategy.

This is according to the High Street retailers new handset grading system which reviews phones on reliability and customer satisfaction based on the number of phones exchanged and serviced by the company.

The 9210 scored four overall. Other phones that did poorly were Motorolas V70 which scored two in the customer satisfaction criterion.

Worst overall brand was the combined Sony Ericsson which received a joint total of six for its T68i handset while equivalent scores were awarded to the Sony J70 and Z7.

The Ericsson T66 fared only slightly better with a combined score of seven.

The service canvasses feedback on what users think about the reliability of kit.

The grading system appears in all its 470 stores and is also available in the August edition of its Buyers Guide. Phones are given marks out of five for the two criteria.

Satisfaction is based on the numbers of any one handset exchanged for a similar model due to unhappiness with the look feel or functionality.

Reliability is based on the number of faulty phones returned to the groups stores.

Said a CPW spokesperson:

We have always given advice for network choice and tariffs. But there wasnt quantifiable advice for handsets.

We have had a number of customers and staff saying that it is a helpful tool.

The new grading criteria will be applied to any handset that has been on the market for six weeks.

The top seven handsets rated by the system are the Nokia 3330 (9) Nokia 5210 (8) Nokia 6510 (8) Nokia 6310i (8) Samsung N620 (8) Samsung N620 (8) and Samsung T100 (8).

The bottom five were the Nokia 9210 Motorola V70 Sony Ericsson T68i Sony J70 and Sony Z7.

A spokesman for the company said:

Vodafone intends to open the majority of its 3G networks for service towards the end of this year and will begin to conduct closed user group trials to test its 3G services. Following this trial phase Vodafone will then begin to market 3G-based services in 2003 when Vodafone expects appropriate levels of dual-mode (GPRS/3G) handsets.

We set out this position in our preliminary results in May.

At the results meeting chief executive Chris Gent said:

Although we open 3G this year we will not be promoting it both because we do not expect plentiful supplies of dual-mode handsets until the next financial year and it is applications that matter for our customers not technology.

The new data applications that were bringing to market during this year do not require 3G but will work very satisfactorily in the 2.5G GPRS environment.

They will further lift the data percentage of revenues progressively throughout the year.

The BBC also said a report in Germanys Die Welt suggested that Vodafone was unhappy with the technical features of Motorola and Nokia 3G phones.

The 10 Orange voucher has been discontinued in line with the growing popularity of alternative methods such as swipe card top-ups which account for over 40 per cent of Orange UKs monthly top-up volume a spokesman for the network said.

Orange will continue its 20 and 50 vouchers and 10 vouchers in circulation will still be valid.

Orange is committed to supporting alternative top-up methods such as swipe card top-up which offers an improved retailer and customer experience eliminating stock issues and reducing the risk of fraud.

Meanwhile Virgin Mobile is to send out electronic top-up swipe cards to its 1.8 million customers. The cards will be accepted at Alphyras 15000 Payzone terminals throughout the country.

The Mobile Takeback Forum (MTF) will address proposed EC recycling legislation which will affect mobile phone manufacturers retailers distributors and repair companies. This follows a proposed EC Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) for tackling Europes unwanted electrical and electronic equipment.

Under the Directive mobile phones and other electrical products will require recycling at the end of their lives.

The MTF will provide a meeting place for industry members to exchange non-competitive information and practices on handset disposal.

The MTF aims to be an effective point of contact with the UK Government technical centre offering recycling guidance and advice to all industry sectors including manufacturers retailers and those associated with waste recovery.

3 would not comment on the role the 700-plus newly acquired Superdrug stores will play in the forthcoming roll-out of its 3G services.

3 says it is still on course for an Autumn roll-out of services. But time looks to be running out for the new network to establish a retail presence. The Caudwell Group refuted the suggestion it was selling the Phones 4U chain to the operator. But the purchase of Superdrug could allow the company to make an immediate High Street impact nationwide.

It is still unknown whether 3 will create a number of store-in-store units to sell its services within the chain or whether certain Superdrug stores will become 3 stores.

If 3 established a series of store-in-store concessionaires the retail operation would be similar to that of Virgin Mobile which sells a quarter of its phones through Virgin Megastore entertainment stores.

Virgin Mobile corporate affairs director Steven Day said: Superdrug has a significant footfall but it depends how they approach the selling of phones. I know Boots did pre-pay a couple of years back and they were successful selling to women but I dont know how you would make 3G phones relevant to women shopping for cosmetics.

When we first said we were going to sell phones in record stores people laughed at us. But doing it in the right way is the subtle difference. We havent opened a designated mobile phone store yet our Virgin Megastores are the fifth most successful retail outlets for mobile phones.

But Virgin had a strong brand name where 3s brand recognition is almost non-existent.

The Link managing director Nick Wood said he would be surprised if the purchase of Superdrug was to play any part in the establishment of 3s High Street presence.

Hutchison Whampoa is a huge retailer around the world and I see the purchase of the Superdrug store as part of a general retail plan and nothing to do with the roll-out of 3.

A person going into a drug store is not in the right mindset to buy a mobile phone. I have little doubt that there will be 3 phone stores quite apart from Superdrug.

British networks are awaiting the result of Oftels investigation into the price they charge consumers for cross network calls.

Last year Oftel announced its intention to reduce call prices by a control of the retail price index minus 12 per cent for the next four years. The proposal was rejected by the networks led by Vodafone forcing Oftel to refer the matter to the Competition Commission.

The Commission returned its report to Oftel last week and Oftel is expected to announce its decision before the end of January.