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And that makes sense because the business will thrive only if it wins and retains customers. Fuller went through the same process at Orange when it was a Hutchison subsidiary, and that experience clearly informs 3’s British operation.

Was he surprised when Hutchison sold out of Orange? “I was a bit, but I knew the strategy.”

Hutchison’s exit left him dangling. He chose to take a job at Telewest, the UK cable group, for nine months before talking his way back into Hutchison.

That’s where he has built his reputation as an accomplished operations chief, popular with staff, and a hard worker.

Hans Snook, chairman of Carphone Warehouse, who worked with Fuller at Orange, describes him as very focused, very success driven. “My only complaint was that he rarely smiled,” says Snook. “He used to say, ‘but I’m smiling inside’.”

Fuller, the eldest son of a Gateshead labourer, says he gets that work ethic from his upbringing. “You work hard because it’s better to be in work than not, and you provide for your family.”

It was the same work ethic that took him to South Africa when his early career as a footballer was ended by injury. Later it took him to Hong Kong when the path through British Gas looked unfulfilling. While working at the Hong Kong Electric Company he was snapped up by Hutchison in 1982.

Since then he has served the Hutchison cause loyally, most recently launching 3 in Italy, then returning to Britain to steady the ship here. Canning Fok, Hutchison’s managing director who masterminded the group’s thrust into 3G, says Fuller has the right commercial nous, now that the technology is established.

“I know him deeply, he knows me deeply. We don’t have to talk, we understand each other,” says Fok.

Fuller is similarly straightforward about Hutchison’s tight-knit, family style. “They have a small head office, give you a lot of autonomy, and they care about their people,” he says.

And does he always say yes to Hutchison’s top tier? “No — only when I’m told to.”

Now he has to build the UK business as quickly as possible, almost regardless of losses. Yet most of 3’s 1.2m subscribers just use 3 for cheap, pay-as-you-go voice calls. How can that give it any advantage? Because it’s about getting experience of what to sell to customers, says Fuller. And 3 will break even by 2006, he promises. By then, rivals will have had to go through the same “pain” to establish their own services. Vodafone, with its vast UK subscriber base, is expected to launch its 3G service before Christmas.

“The quicker they come in, the better,” says Fuller, “but they have a huge issue. We have set the tariffs. Do they charge different tariffs or the same? And they’ll find the technology is much more complicated than with 2G. There’s much more interaction with platforms and content providers, and they won’t understand that until customers start using it.”

So Fuller will keep building his empire while hoping that others crumble. In his spare time he relaxes by watching his beloved Newcastle — he was there yesterday for the match against Spurs — and walking the odd fell. He keeps a flat in London and a home in the northeast. Roots, when you’re mobile, are important.

He cites the video call he made from The Peak in Hong Kong a fortnight ago to his grandson in Newcastle. Forget clever content ideas — it is the human touch that will most effectively sell 3G, just as it has with new technologies in the past.

Video-messaging could even replace texts. “And imagine this,” says Fuller, with Geordie intensity, “if you don’t want to be you, you could be Sean Connery!” Absholootely. Or in his case, maybe Alan Shearer? It’s going to happen, he says. The rest of us can only wait and see what the second half brings.

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