Cellnet – Telecom Securicor Cellular Radio Ltd – has been investing UKP4m a week over the last six months to tackle its much publicised problems, and it plans to continue that high level of investment until March 1991. The company says that it has increased network capacity by 60% since January, and it now has 19,000 voice channels compared with 11,000 in November. The number of base stations has also increased to 570, and Cellnet intends to up that to 750 by the end of March, although the new ETAC channels will enable the company to cut stations in 1992. Cellnet, which is 60% owned by British Telecommunications Plc and 40% by Securicor Group Plc and one of its subsidiaries, has taken criticism of its service to heart, and all but cleared the decks of its original management team. Six out of eight directors are newcomers, and they are headed by Stafford Taylor, formerly with MBS Plc, and the man who launched the Personal Computer at IBM UK. Taylor acknowledges that the Cellnet service has been sub-standard over the past few years, but he claims that with 25 customers per channel, down from 35, quality and successfully completed calls will improve significantly. He aims to reduce that figure to 20 customers per channel by March 1991. Cellnet says it has a 47% market share, and it insists that it can catch up with Racal Telecom Plc’s Vodafone which has over 500,000 subscribers. However, Taylor says that he has no intention of undercutting Vodafone on tariff levels, and he accepts that it will take some time to close the gap. Taylor believes that quality problems such as congestion and dropped calls suppressed demand for Cellnet, and he is aiming to reduce cell congestion to a 5% maximum by the year-end. In a noticeable change of policy, Cellnet’s new logo and corporate image features its British Telecom parentage. Taylor says this not only reflects a sea-change within Cellnet, but also the close interest that British Telecom has in its not inconsiderable investment in the business, currently standing at UKP450m, and rising.
