Forty-two per cent of 1013 respondents to a poll conducted in July by ICM Research said they would first ask a family member friend or colleague for advice or help with their mobile phone.

Mobile phone stores came second with 28 per cent. Eleven per cent said they would consider calling a telephone helpline. Fifteen per cent would search the Internet for help.

Of those that would go to a mobile phone store for advice 27 per cent would visit The Carphone Warehouse.

Orange wont be pleased to read that despite its Learn campaign respondents preferred to go to Vodafone and The Link. T-Mobile Phones 4U and independent retailers came last with only five per cent of respondents mentioning them as stores to go to for advice.

The survey also showed that 47 per cent of Orange and Vodafone customers were more likely to go to their own network stores for advice.

However 34 per cent of T-Mobile customers surveyed claimed they would rather go to the Carphone Warehouse for advice than a T-Mobile store (22 per cent).

O2 fared slightly better. Twenty eight per cent of its customers would go to an O2 store but 30 per cent of O2 customers named The Carphone Warehouse as their preferred store for advice.

Text messaging came top of the services and features that most people wanted to learn more about.

The survey showed that people wanted to learn more about subjects such as roaming (41 per cent) voicemail (36 per cent) and hands-free accessories (30 per cent).

Internet access was the least mentioned subject (14 per cent) followed closely by video calls (15 per cent) and picture messaging (22 per cent).

People aged 18-24 were more likely to be interested in picture messaging games ringtones and roaming.

Respondents aged 55 and over showed most interest in roaming text messages and in-car hands-free usage.

The figures are the first to be released by the network and came out in the interim results of 3 UKs Hong Kong parent company Hutchison Whampoa.

Although the networks summer offerings were described as very well received the figures will be disappointing for chief executive Bob Fuller considering the millions that have already been ploughed into a national advertising campaign the slashing of tariff costs and the scrapping of charges for handsets.

The one million customer target set by Fullers predecessor Colin Tucker was always thought of as being highly ambitious and since arriving in May Fuller has sought to distance himself from such a figure.

He can take some satisfaction from the knowledge that the majority of the networks customers have joined following his introduction of low-cost tariffs eight weeks ago. Prior to that sales of 3 were lethargic at best with the network only signing up around 25000 customers by the third week of May.

3s initial positioning as a high-end product failed to catch the publics imagination and it has only been since tariff prices were dropped and extremely generous tariff bundles were introduced that the demand has risen.

And in recent weeks the network has become a victim of its own success with its most popular handset the NEC 606 ending its production run while demand was at its peak.

But the handset shortages are set to be resolved the range of handsets is set to improve and grow and the network coverage is improving on a weekly basis – according to the results the UK network now covers 70 per cent of the country.

3 UK director of corporate communications Ray Bashford said: They are very positive figures given how the network was performing in May.

Since then the growth has been phenomenal and I would argue unparalleled in the UK telecoms industry.

The offices will officially close in November. Vodafone director of customer management Joe McLoone said he hoped all the staff would take up the offer to relocate in Vodafones other offices in Banbury and Birmingham.

Ideally I would want all of the staff to stay but at the moment I dont know how many want to come with us. The mood is very quiet at the moment which is what you would expect but if everyone wants to move to other offices we have space for that.

With Banbury not too far away it is possible that a large proportion of staff would want to move there. It is a very realistic alternative and it is unusual for a company to be able to accommodate staff in this manner.

McLoone blamed the need to move on the growth of the centre and the limitation of the existing offices. Vodafone acquired the offices in September 1999 following the purchase of Unique Air.

Originally designed for general office work the buildings have since changed function to include a large call centre with an corresponding increase in personnel.

McLoone said the decision to close the offices follows a period of review to consider how to best manage the activities in Abingdon and that decision was taken now to take advantage of a lease break in the building contract.

Fowler is gagged from discussing the case as a condition of the settlement

Fowler worked in Siemens sales department. She alleged a number of incidents and filed a complaint at the office of Ashford Employment Tribunals last Christmas Eve.

Bate said Fowler had now left the company but declined to give any details of the settlement.

He stated: Jennifer Fowler left the company on May 8. The company wishes her well for the future. No further comment concerning Jennifers departure from the company will be made by the company or by Jennifer.

The September relaunch issue of What Mobile is the first under its new logo w@mob.

Snodgrasss appointment is a key component of the plan for What Mobile to become the countrys leading mobile lifestyle guide relevant to all 50 million UK mobile phone users not just handset geeks.

Snodgrass will head an editorial team consisting of David Chow (associate editor) Jon Corke (deputy editor) and Dan Maudsley (staff writer).

(Special half-price w@mob offer for Mobile News readers see P16)

3s most popular handset the NEC 606 has come to the end of its production run and no new handsets will be out until next month.

Dealers report customers are more attracted to 3 by its low-cost packages rather than equipment. Users seemly broadly happy to switch to the larger NEC 808.

However several dealers have revealed that they havent been able to get hold of 808 handsets.

Kevin Billington of KEB in Sussex deals directly with 3 and has been unable to order any new 808 phones.

I know there are some about but I think we must have missed the order for them he said.

Ian Robinson of MoCo Cell Link only has NEC 808s left in stock.

We have seen sales slow down because of the absence of the 606 he said. The 808 is a good phone but it isnt an obvious consumer phone – and the new 3 tariffs are excellent consumer offerings. But we are seeing 3 selling in spite of the 808 and if we had any 606s in stock we would be seeing sales rise.

Ian Gillespie managing director of 3 distributor Fone Logistics said:

The 808 is less popular than the 606 but we are still seeing an increase in demand for 3. And with 3s current football promotion under way the 808s large screen is a good selling point.

Hugh Symons business manager Bob Sweetlove agreed that sales of the 808 have increased since the end of the 606 because it is the only viable alternative. Sales of the 808 are going pretty well because more people are seeing it as a replacement for the 606 he said.

He replaces Katsumi Ihara who becomes deputy president group chief strategy officer and chief financial officer of Sony Corporation in Japan.

Flint has worked at Sony for more than 10 years and is said to have extensive experience in international management consumer electronics and the business-to-business environment.

Ihara has been president of Sony Ericsson since the joint-venture was formed in October 2001. He will continue as a Sony Ericsson board director.

Katsumi Ihara has performed a tremendous task in creating the joint-venture and steering it to its present position said Sony Ericsson chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg. I am looking forward to welcoming Miles Flint to Sony Ericsson. He is bringing additional experience to secure the companys continued growth.

Sony Ericsson last month reported a strong increase in shipments and record profits for Q1.

Customers had been invited to sign up for a free text festival guide information service. But the service was never intended to be free and a mistake had been made with the advertising. Users were charged 20p a message. Orange said wrongly billed customers were informed and their accounts were credited with the debited amount. This applied to contract and pre-pay customers.

We made a mistake and rectified it. The problem was identified almost immediately and the people at Glastonbury were notified of the situation said an Orange spokesperson.

Samsung has appointed a new head of product management a global national account manager for O2 and a content manager and website manager for its Fun Club interactive website.

General manager for mobile UK Mark Mitchinson said there would be a further four or five appointments within the next six weeks.

He also promised dealers that Samsung would soon have a wider handset range and promised six new handsets for the second half of the year.

Last year we made some advances he said but this year we need to step up to grow. We have some really outstanding products coming out in the second half of the year and we want to be in a position to give them the support they deserve.

We want to become a very clear second to Nokia and the only way we can do that is by having the right people in place. We have been under-staffed for some time now and we have to have the right people in place if we are to move forward.

Samsungs new head of product management is Ender Yavas its global national account manager for O2 is John French. Fun Club content manager is James Davis who joins from Vodafone. The website manager is Nick Turner Samuel.

The agency quizzed 500 adults about what services they wanted from their mobile and how long it was likely to be before they upgraded to start to use these services.

The research indicated that the market for picture messaging could almost double between now and the end of the year. Seven per cent of people said they already had picture messaging capability. Another five per cent expected to adopt it in the next six months.

A similar proportion expected to get video messaging soon. This is three times the number currently claiming video messaging capability.

But fifty seven per cent of those surveyed claimed that there was nothing their mobile could offer them of interest other than the current voice and text applications.

Despite this lack of apparent demand however there was a definite recognition of eventual adoption. Nearly 24 per cent acknowledged that they would eventually get picture messaging.

Women seemed more cautious about adopting new services with 42 per cent of all women believing they would never have picture-taking capability in their mobiles against 35 per cent for men.

Both desire and expectation are stronger among younger audiences said David Fletcher head of research at Mediaedge:cia.

These are encouraging signs suggesting a strong performance for upgrades up to and probably peaking at Christmas time.

The relative circumspection of 25- to 34-year-olds suggests a price-sensitivity combined with an expectation of falling prices as the market develops.

Fletcher went on: The fact that more and more people expect to adopt new services rather than express spontaneous interest indicates that consumers now expect that emergent technologies will become interesting to them as their friends and colleagues start to take up and talk up the benefit.