UK telecoms regulator Ofcom wants to ban inflation-related rises in phone and broadband contracts. Instead, it says any potential mid-contract price rises should be set out in pounds and pence.

A new forecast from research specialists Canalys shows the smartphone market is set to recover next year. Worldwide shipments declined by 12% last year but that decline is expected to slow to 5% this year.

Vodafone Group plc and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited have agreed to combine their UK telecommunication businesses, respectively Vodafone UK and Three UK. The merger will create a large new network operator to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE.

UK mobile payment service Paym will close on 7th March 2023. The service, which allowed users to make and receive payments using their mobile phone numbers, was launched in 2014.

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.

Mark Windle of OpenCloud writes:

In 2014, operators focussed on rolling out LTE, but some have lost sight of the bigger picture. 2015 will see traditional telecoms services delivered over multiple access technologies, of which LTE is just a part. As next year fast approaches, our predictions take a step back and look at how the industry will adapt to the changing landscape.

In this presentation, which was originally given as part of the ‘Multimedia Content Delivery onto Mobile Platforms’ session at Mobile World Congress 2014, Professor Andrew Nix from the University of Bristol explains many of the often-forgotten truths about WiFi service.

If you’re an IT manager, working in a mobile phone shop, looking at tech product design or simply want to get the most from your mobile phone, Professor Nix has plenty of practical advice in this 20-minute video clip.

Mark Bridge writes:

No prizes for guessing which two mobile tech stories grabbed most of the headlines last week. Tuesday morning saw Nokia’s much-rumoured tablet and phablet launches, with a Windows RT device and two 6-inch smartphones joining the company’s product portfolio.

Mark Bridge writes:

There’s been a lot of talk recently about PRISM, which may allow the US National Security Agency - and anyone they choose - to access some of our personal online information if it passes through the USA. It’s unclear exactly what (if anything) is being shared with whom… and given the nature of national security, we may never know.

However, alongside the possibility of governments seeing information we thought was secure, it’s also worth pointing out that we choose to share plenty of online information ourselves.

Mark Bridge writes:

Last year, the Google I/O developer conference gave us plenty of product announcements: Google Glass, the Nexus 7 tablet, the Nexus Q device and the Jelly Bean version of Android. This year’s announcements were less dramatic: a streaming music service, a Google-friendlier Galaxy S4 and some game development tools. Coincidentally (or perhaps not) Apple announced its 50 billionth app download in the middle of the event.

This week the team review a new phone from Sagem, a bluetooth headset that cancels out background noise from Qstik, the introduction of .mobi domains and the latest games to keep you entertained.

This week the team explore the real cost of Mobile Internet, review the latest Blackberry with a camera, the O2 Ice, and Lego meets Star Wars in the latest mobile game.

This week the team discuss mobile pricing, review the LG KG810 and MDA Vario 2 from T-Mobile along with Rogue Trader the latest game from RockPool as well as a joke management system called Pass-It-On-Jokes.

This week we review the Sony Mylo, a phone that may rival the Blackberry in the form of the E61 from Nokia, Insaniquarium the latest game to make the leap from web to mobile and the LG U400 phone for DJs.

After the summer break the Fonecast team is back with a review of 2 new mobiles from Motorola, a stylish new phone from BenQ-Siemens, advice on protecting your voice mail plus all the mobile news from the last month.