Mercury Communications Ltd, has ploughed UKP300m into phase one of its own digital mobile telephone network, called Mercury One-2-One: the system, to be launched within weeks, will initially cover the M25 area providing calls to anywhere for 50% to 66% of other mobile prices; fixed line calls from Mercury and British Telecommunications Plc telephones will be cheaper; free services include itemised billing, call barring, call waiting and call divert; Siemens AG, Motorola Inc and NEC Corp are making the telephones, which will cost UKP250 to UKP300, and will use Smart Cards carrying the user’s details; the service will cover most of the southeast by mid-1994, and 90% of the UK by the end of the decade.
