Vodafone is set to receive reprimand from the ASA over its Best in Britain bar none and Best in London bar none non-broadcast advertising campaigns.

The advertising watchdog has drafted a recommended course of action but not yet formerly sent out an adjudication on the matter.

O2 made the complaint objecting to Vodafones claim in the advertisement that it had the best call success rate in the country.

A source close to O2 said that the carrier thought the campaign did not acknowledge other performance metrics such as customer service. O2 also objected to the size of the small print on the advertisements which it said was not prominent enough.

According to the source the ASA has indicated that it is likely the complaint will be upheld.

Vodafone has refused to comment on the investigation.

Meanwhile Orange has been rapped by the ASA for misleading text contained within its Double talk double text promotional activity.

The network ran TV press and Internet promotions headlined: Now all customers old and new can get double minutes and double texts for six months on Your Plan 120 200 or 300.

The ASA received 28 complaints criticising the ads for being misleading because they did not make it clear that existing customers must complete a certain number of months of their contract and must agree to sign up to a further contract to take advantage of the offers.

After the complaints were raised with Orange the network changed the wording in its ads but the ASA still considered the ads misleading.

An Orange spokesman confirmed the campaign had ended.

Joseph Crowe (24) is charged with stealing mobile phones from two passengers on a train in June.

In another case two London men were accused of violently robbing a man of his Nokia in Bayswater West London.

Mohammed Ridha (20) was remanded in custody at the Middlesex Huildhall Crown Court.

He and a 16-year-old boy who cannot be named for legal reasons are charged with robbing Youssef Alazema last November subjecting him to force.

Go Mobile managing director Iain Humphrey axed six under-performing stores following the departures of former Go Mobile chief Les Bennett and sales director Nil Naik to set up Mint Mobile in March.

The new stores in Driffield and Ripon are the latest in a series of eight store openings since Humphrey the founder of Go Mobile seized control of the retail chain.

Humphrey said:

Motivation was very low among staff within the company before we re-organised the team.

The number of stores came down to just 17. As some stores leases came up for renewal we chose to close them because they werent performing as they should have been.

After Les [Bennett] and Nil [Naik] left the morale within the company turned around.

The two new stores take us up to 25 in total. We have also employed a full-time refitting team so we have refurbished all the stores in England and removed all the network-related material.

Handsets drive sales among consumers and we have our own in-house team which has designed all the point-of-sale material around that.

He added: We will consolidate during the period up to Christmas get through January and February next year and then look to expand further.

Shebang Distribution the independent distribution arm of Humphreys Daventry business recently won a contract to supply JAG Communications. Humphrey installed Sellfone 3G Shebangs automated stock replenishment system in all 76 of JAGs stores over the summer.

Fans can sign up to their clubs official mobile content service whatever network they are on to get SMS and MMS downloads including ringtones club wallpapers and a WAP site.

This will give them access to match previews half and full time scores with commentary and analysis of the games. This season they will also be offered exclusive video content containing all the highlights 24 hours after the game.

O2 UK head of sponsorship Paul Samuels said: O2 is proud to be continuing its successful partnership with the Guinness Premiership as it enhances O2s presence in rugby at all levels from grassroots with O2 rugby class right through to the England squad.

Whatever we do in our sponsorship it is critical that we deliver additional value to our customers and the Guinness Premiership mobile service offers the most up-to-date and detailed information that any rugby fan could wish for.

O2 claims that its MMS alerts will contain pictures club and player stats and text making it the only service in the UK to offer all elements of multi-media messaging. In addition the Guinness Premiership micro site WAP portal can be accessed through the Sport section on the O2 Active service.

Fans will be rewarded for their loyalty with a season of O2 experiences – everything from having a chance to meet their rugby heroes win signed shirts or even train with the players.

Samuels said: We believe that with the Guinness Premiership and the activity planned to support the England rugby team we can continue to create awareness around the O2 brand and reward our customers by offering the best rugby experiences and services available.

Premier Rugby commercial director Jon Varney added: As the numbers of people following club rugby in England continue to grow O2s range of mobile services will help us feed the passion our supporters have for following all the Guinness Premiership news and match action.

Morris who will cover acquisition retention and growth of Oranges SME customer base will report to Orange Business Solutions marketing director Shaun Orpen.

Morris joined Vodafone in 2000 as operations director for Vodafone Marketing Services.

Morris said: The small and medium business is a challenging market to provide services for due to the diverse range of customer needs and I am excited by the opportunity.

O2 said that it would focus on growing its operations

An O2 spokesman said: Its just the talk of city analysts in a couple of brokers notes. Weve lived with takeover speculation for four years. The City said that we would be gobbled up within a few months.

Last month O2 was linked with a joint-bid from Germanys T-Mobile and Dutch operator KPN. Citigroup was reported this week as claiming that KPNs German subsidiary E-Plus was ripe for a takeover bid from O2 and that it might also consider a merger with 3 to take advantage of its 3G network.

O2 defended its cautious approach to 3G so far as being in line with demand.

3G wont be mass market until the end of the year at the earliest and The Carphone Warehouse has admitted that as well said an O2 spokesman. Our investment is in line with demand.

He added: We are concentrating on growing the Tesco Mobile business in the UK which is doing very well and the Tchibo venture in Germany. We are around about number two in the UK and gaining when others are losing customers.

The German operation is the fastest growing in Germany. It has turned from being an absolute laggard into being on a par with Vodafone. T-Mobile and E-Plus have struggled there. We want to continue to realise the value of those operations.

O2 paid shareholders 2.25p per share at the end of August which O2 pointed out was two years ahead of City analysts expectations.

3 also dismissed the reports.

Total ARPU fell to around 17 from 17.36 in Q1 2004. Data ARPU grew from 3.29 in Q1 2004 to 3.49 in the period ending March 31.

In its quarterly market update Ofcom revealed that voice usage was down from an average of 34 minutes per month in Q1 2004 to just 30 minutes. UK users sent on average 47 text messages per month five more than during the same quarter in 2004.

Gibbons was responsible for MSN sales and marketing which includes MSN Hotmail and MSN Messenger in the US and 39 other markets worldwide. At O2 her focus will be the companys move to take advantage of converging technologies where an O2 spokesman said her expertise at Microsoft and previously at Apple and Hewlett Packard will be key.

O2 chairman David Arculus said: [Gibbons] brings with her a wealth of global experience in marketing development and customer service particularly in internet based services which are becoming increasingly important in O2s business.

Gibbons appointment comes after a period of wastage in O2s non-executive directorships since last August when Paul Myners and Neelie Kroes announced their departure.

Russell Merchant 26 whos now unemployed of Larkspur Court Hawthorn Road Wallington Surrey is charged with stealing the vouchers while employed at the Orange store at 261 Oxford Street between December 13 and 16 last year.

Merchant was granted unconditional bail.

Avenir sales and marketing director Tanny Price said Avenir was aware of long waiting times coming into its call centre and was trying to remedy this as soon as possible. She explained Avenir had done the most O2 connections in the channel in August by a long way.

The connections increase we experienced last month really took me by surprise she said. However I am confident that the changes and improvements that we have put in place will have a significant impact and that our levels of service will be back to what our customers have always enjoyed with Avenir.

Things were obviously never going to improve overnight once the move [to new offices] had taken place. New systems always take a while to bed in and tweak she said.

Price added that Avenir had put in new telephone systems and recruited four new members of staff to bolster resources.

We have a proposed restructure in place for October which will mean a different kind of service will be given to Avenir dealers. We will be introducing dedicated relationship managers whose responsibilities will be to liaise continually with the networks for exceptional queries and for any incidents that may arise.

I am monitoring the stats on a daily basis and can see a definite improvement. We have introduced a generic e-mail address where any dealer issues or requests can be forwarded. This also acts as an online help desk and normally responses are turned round within an hour.

See Sharp End page 14