Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, has asked twenty one EU countries to urgently introduce all the necessary legal measures to allow the pan-EU deployment of mobile satellite services. Potential uses for these services include high-speed internet, mobile television and emergency communications.

The European Parliament and the EU's Council of Ministers agreed around three years ago that Mobile Satellite Services should be deployed in all EU Member States by May 2011.

Eutelsat Communications successfully launched its KA-SAT satellite on Boxing Day 2010. The 6.1 tonne satellite will offer internet connectivity for more than one million homes at speeds comparable to ADSL.

O3b Networks, which counts Google amongst its shareholders, says it’s now ready to start building its satellite internet service having raised a total of $1.2 billion from a group of investors and banks.

The satellites are intended to deliver low latency, fibre-quality internet connectivity for developing markets.

Satellite navigation company Garmin has warned mobile phone users about the 'hidden' costs of using smartphone sat-nav services that download maps over the mobile internet. They've calculated that users can end up with a phone bill more expensive than the cost of the fuel used for their journey.

Satellite phone service Iridium has announced plans for 81 satellites that'll form its next-generation mobile phone service. It already supports more than 359,000 subscribers on its existing sat-phone network. The new service, called Iridium NEXT, was first revealed in 2007. It'll have 72 satellites in space and an additional nine spares on the ground.

This new announcement has confirmed the cost of the project - approximately $2.9 billion - and also reveals that the satellites will be built by Thales Alenia Space. They're expected to be launched from early 2015.

Mark Windle, head of marketing at OpenCloud, predicts that this year’s reduction in the number of traditional telecoms operators in some countries will provide an opportunity for other operators to innovate and capture market share in 2016.

He says next year will be a year of rapid change for telecoms… whether it’s MVNO disruption, competitive tariff pricing or simply defence from the ‘dark art’ of hacking.

Mark Bridge writes:

The most memorable moments in life often go unrecorded. You don't have your camera in your hands. Your finger is still hovering over the 'pause' button on your audio recorder. Or you were simply too busy experiencing whatever was happening. It's all about the one that got away.

That's where Kapture can help.

Mark Bridge writes:

James Rosewell shows me a colourful roll of paper that's the width of an iPhone but well over three metres long. When I look closer, I can see it's a printed copy of the Wall Street Journal's mobile website. That's a lot of scrolling to do... and a pretty unfriendly user experience for anyone reading the news online. Why does it work so badly?

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.