All change at Cellnet

Cellnet, the UK's number two mobile network operator, will from next month be known as BT Cellnet and is launching a £10m advertising campaign to publicise the new brand.

Co-owned by BT and Securicor, the move to associate the operator more closely with the country's largest telco is bound to increase speculation that BT is close to buying Securicor's 40 per cent stake. Such a move was approved in principal by the UK government in February.

Cellnet marketing manager Kent Thexton said moving closer to BT would make it easier to provide the mixture of mobile and fixed voice, data and other computing services that users are increasingly looking for. The company is creating 1,500 new jobs to cope with rocketing demand.

Cellnet has enjoyed strong growth recently, signing up 479,000 new customers in the first three months of 1999. It was late to jump on the pre-pay bandwagon, but recent figures show these sales account for almost four out of five new users.

Call centre operations in Yorkshire and Scotland will be the main beneficiaries of what is a 50 per cent increase in the company's workforce.