The European Commission has implemented new rules for high-speed mobile internet services. EU members that release 800MHz frequencies as part of the 'digital dividend' resulting from the switchover from analogue to digital television broadcasting are now required to make the frequencies available for wireless broadband applications such as LTE or WiMAX.

Orange has revamped its mobile broadband service, changing its price plans and introducing the 'animal' branding used on its mobile phone services.

Dolphin costs from £15 a month and includes a 'happy hour' of unlimited surfing every day. Customers can pick 8am-9am, 12-1pm, 4pm-5pm or 10pm-11pm. The tariff includes 3GB of data per month on an 18-month minimum term contract or 2GB of data per month on a 1-month contract.

Panther Mobile Broadband starts at £25 a month for 10GB of data but offers 'unlimited' data for £35 a month on an 18-month contract. And Racoon starts at £5 a month for 500MB of data on an 18-month contract.

In the latest edition of The Fonecast we spoke to Richard Kinder, Vice President of Technology and New Business at Red Bend Software. The company specialises in Mobile Software Management, which is probably best known as a service that enables over-the-air (OTA) updates for mobile phones. Here’s an edited transcript of the interview, which started when we asked Richard for a simple explanation of what MSM and OTA meant.

"Red Bend software has been around for a number of years, and our solutions in the Mobile Software Management space allow the software in a mobile phone to be updated in the consumer’s hands."

O2 UK has announced its first devices with embedded SIM cards. Although the concept isn't new – Vodafone UK has offered netbooks with SIM cards for over a year, while Datawind's UbiSurfer and PocketSurfer devices also have built-in SIMs – these are the first O2 laptops with their own SIM cards.

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.