Actor Brian Blessed is offering to record voicemail messages for the first hundred O2 UK customers who buy an HTC Windows Phone 8 handset this week.

The promotional campaign, which involves each purchaser tweeting @O2 using the hashtag #brianmail, will reward winners with a voicemail greeting recorded by the richly-voiced British actor

Communications business AT&T has agreed to spend $1.9 billion (£1.2 billion) to acquire some 700MHz mobile spectrum from Verizon Wireless.

It’s acquiring 39 licences that cover 42 million people in 18 states.

Mark Bridge writes:

I didn’t study economics at college, which is probably one of the reasons I have a very simple perspective on quarterly results. As far as I’m concerned, they fall into one of three categories: much as expected, better than expected or worse than expected. Anyway, it’s the time of year when some of the biggest names in the mobile telecoms industry publish their financial results – so here we go.

Staff at major UK retail shops are more likely to recommend a Samsung smartphone or tablet than an Apple device, according to a small survey carried out in London by Informa Telecoms & Media.

A mystery shopper who visited eight shops on Oxford Street in London found that Apple and Samsung were the most promoted brands while Huawei, LG, Motorola, RIM and ZTE had little high-street presence.

Telecommunications giant Telefónica, the company behind the O2 network in the UK, has announced a number of initiatives to develop entrepreneurship in Europe by 2015.

Its plans were revealed by the company’s Chief Operating Officer during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland today.