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.

By incorporating advanced algorithms and machine learning capabilities, AI can help to optimize a smartphone's performance, providing users with a faster, more efficient and user-friendly experience.

Mark Bridge writes:

I've been taking a look back at the devices I've written about during the past few years. Some are still faithful companions, others... well, let's just say my faith was misplaced.

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?

A mobile phone fraud worth £60,000 was revealed last week. 195 mobile phones had been ordered online from The Carphone Warehouse using false names but genuine addresses. Instead of delivering the phones to the correct address, delivery drivers were paid to deliver them to the person who’d placed the fraudulent orders.

A new report from Gartner has revealed the operating systems used in the last quarter's smartphone sales. Once again Symbian was the most-used operating system, although its 36.6% market share was down several percentage points from last year.

O2 UK is offering the new motion-sensitive Kinect for Xbox 360 video gaming device in selected stores as part of a Christmas upgrade package for its customers.

This week's edition of The Fonecast takes its regular look at the biggest news stories affecting the UK mobile industry, from Symbian's dramatic reorganisation to Facebook's location-based ambitions. In addition we talk to Peter Gradwell, founder of Gradwell Mobile, about the way his company puts fixed-line numbers on mobile phones.

The Carphone Warehouse has published its interim results for the six months to 30th September 2010.