Good news this week for Orange, the youngest of Britain's mobile phone operators and one of two groups vying for the third mobile phone licence here.

The company topped the poll in a survey of satisfaction based on the views of 1,800 customers who were asked to rate their operator on 36 different characteristics included call quality and price.

According to the Financial Times Orange scored 121 points, putting it 20 points ahead of One to One, which in turn was ahead of Cellnet by five points.