Mobile phones more efficient than anyone thought

Britain's four main mobile networks are 95 per cent efficient, according to winged watchdog Oftel.

Its snoops visited more than 70 different towns and cities were visited and tested BT Cellnet, One2One, Orange and Vodafone's networks for performance. A minimum of 20,000 calls was made on each network.

Oftel top dog David Edmonds waffled on for a bit about how great Oftel was, then said the results were "in line with Oftel's strategy to encourage self-regulation.

"I expect the telecom companies to continue to demonstrate their willingness to provide consumers with this kind of service," he droaned on, "and demonstrate that they can provide the best deal for consumers in terms of quality, choice and value for money."

This is excellent news for all concerned because we could have sworn it was more like 70 per cent. Mind you, just because we abide in London - the city with the largest concentration of mobile masts in the country - and consistently get cut off when we do manage to get through... It came as a great relief to find out we were wrong.

Now all we have to worry about is microwaving our brains. Oh, no, sorry, last week we were told they were safe (weren't we?). Ain't mobiles great? ®