Darla Mack points to an interesting survey, also featured in the Register today, which says that, based on data gathered by Ipsos MORI for Logica, some 58% of British mobile owners didn't know what make and model of handset they use.

Highlights of the study are that:

- Half of all users (49%) know only the make, with a further one in ten (9%) knowing neither make nor model.
-Men and younger users (in the 15 to 34 age group) are most likely to know details of their handset.
-These last two groups are also those most likely to engage with advanced data services (such as MMS and mobile internet browsing) than women and the 55 plus age group.

Of course, the inital problem this presents is a difficulty in servicing customers with new accessories, device-appropriate content and other issues that are dependant on knowing, um, which phone you have. With all of their effort to push their own brands, operators have succeeded (in the UK, and likely in other markets as well) in obscuring important brand loyalties. Probably also feeding these numbers is a rising turnover rate for devices, the flood of new devices from contract manufacturers, and buying decisions made on the tariff offer alone, and not the feature set or quality levels.

Operators inflated sense of their own importance, and misguided attempts to lock in customers and revenues once again bite the big boys in the backside. I'll say it again: value-added service revenue won't grow (and many customers will be stuck in a ghetto between the PAYG ringtone freaks and expense account business customers) if customers don't know what their devices and services can do, and can afford to pay for reasonable use.