Two of the UK's leading network operators are refusing to introduce measures to discourage mobile phone thefts despite the soaring levels of crime which saw 700,000 handsets stolen last year.
The government and industry experts are infuriated by Vodafone UK and BT Cellnet's refusal to implement the systems - based on the code *#06# - that block stolen handsets when the other major networks - Orange, One2One and Virgin Mobile - have all done so.
"We want to see all mobile phone operators using this technology," said a Home Office spokesman.
Last month John Denham, the minister for crime reduction, policing and community safety, said of the networks: "A start has been made, but more needs to be done before Britain's mobile phone system can lead the world in security."
While the lord chief justice's announcement that phone thieves should be jailed received plenty of attention this week, less was made of his recommendation that phone companies should "reduce the attractiveness" of their products to thieves.
Industry experts say that network operators, as well as criminals, benefit from the problem. They estimate that Vodafone and BT Cellnet make tens of millions of pounds each year through calls made via stolen phones.
"The bottom line is that they are making money out of it," said Perdita Patterson, editor of What Mobile magazine.
"Back in the old days, mobile crime meant stealing airtime from the networks. Now that it means something that only hurts the customer - and actually benefits the network because people are still paying for airtime, even if they do so on a stolen handset - they seem to have lost the knack of throwing millions of pounds at the problem. When there was large scale fraud they couldn't spend enough."
The Mobile Phone Industry Crime Action Forum, which represents network providers and some manufacturers, says stolen handsets do not increase usage.
"People would be making calls and paying the network anyway," said its spokesman, Jack Wraith. "They're just doing it on more modern, trendy phones that they would have done otherwise."
But the government is increasingly irritated by the networks' refusal to block stolen handsets. "If One2One, Virgin and Orange can implement it, why haven't Vodafone and BT Cellnet?" a source said.
At present all networks cancel the Sim cards which store account details when consumers report that their phones have been stolen. The handsets can still be used because thieves long ago learned to replace the Sim cards with new ones, which cost just a few pounds.
But each handset has a serial number - known as the international mobile equipment identification or IMEI number - which a phone owner can check by dialling *#06#. The number is sent to a network each time the phone connects to it.
Orange, Virgin and One2One blacklist these numbers when customers tell them their phones have been stolen, ensuring that the handsets cannot be used on their networks even if the Sim card is changed.
BT Cellnet and Vodafone lack the technology to bar these numbers and claim there is little point in acquiring it; BT Cellnet says it is a misconception that a blacklist would cut crime and argue that they would cut off innocent users because up to 10% of IMEI numbers are duplicated.
The major handset manufacturers disagree. Nokia says that it is extremely hard to change the IMEI numbers on their phones and say that any duplication is rare, and usually occurs on phones shipped to different parts of the world. Sony Ericsson claims never issues duplicate IMEI numbers.
The issue is complicated by thieves reprogramming or "chipping" phones to change their IMEI numbers. The Home Office has asked the industry to discuss whether this should be outlawed.
"The problem is that the number is stored in the software, so a professional phone thief will reprogram the handset and alter the number to the number of a phone that is still registered as legitimate," explained Ms Patterson.
Jack Wraith disagrees. "When we monitored it to try and establish what happened to stolen phones we could only detect one in four phones ever being reconnected to the network on the original IMEI," he said. "Either the phones were going elsewhere or the IMEI numbers were changed. The others are either being thrown away and never used or being stolen as trophies."
He added: "While networks who do operate an IMEI blacklist can stop that number from operating on their own network, they cannot immobilise the handset to stop it operating on other networks."
But that is only true because the networks refuse to pool information. Mr Wraith said companies have tried to operate such a database but found there were too many problems.
He also argued that the industry has made concerted efforts to protect the consumer through new technologies.
"In the recent past we have made Sim cards a lot more robust to the point where it is not economical for thieves to copy them and handsets where it is much more difficulty to change the IMEI number are coming onto the market now," he said.
Within a few years, handsets that only work when they recognise the user's fingerprint or iris should be available. One firm has developed a chip that will permanently disable handsets even if Sim cards and IMEI numbers are changed.
But all these developments, of course, will involve consumers upgrading their phones yet again and paying even more for their handsets. And that means still more profits for the industry.