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 Bridge writes:

August is traditionally known as the ‘silly season’… but last week’s mobile industry news was all very serious. Apple started with a move designed to reassure customers about unsafe iPhone chargers by arranging a discounted exchange scheme – and it ended the week with a patent victory in the USA.

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.

Mark Bridge writes:

We’re back from Mobile World Congress – and what a show it was. Located at a new site that saw more visitors than ever before, the show had everything… except any particularly obvious theme from hardware manufacturers. Last year was the year of the quad-core smartphone, this year there was plenty of incremental innovation but nothing truly startling.

Mark Bridge writes:

The last few days have been particularly busy for UK telecoms regulator Ofcom. It started the week by announcing its rules for next year’s UK 4G mobile spectrum auction – expect services to go live in around six months – and it ended the week with plans to avoid a 5G capacity crunch.

Mark Bridge writes:

Can you trust a Chinese company to build a telecoms network?  Apparently not, according to the US House of Representatives. The “Investigative Report on the U.S. National Security Issues Posed by Chinese Telecommunications Companies Huawei and ZTE” wasn’t at all impressed with the two companies, although most of the complaints appeared to be about a lack of cooperation rather than hard evidence. I wonder if any mysterious agents are planning to visit the new Huawei UK HQ before next year’s official opening?

This week's podcast starts with Lenovo's purchase of the Motorola Mobility smartphone business. Was it a good deal for everyone?

We also talk about network infrastructure sharing in the UK, mobile malware, 3G coverage, misleading apps, mobile advertising, Samsung's retail plans and global tablet sales.

We start this week's podcast by looking at the new Ofcom rules that should end unexpected mid-contract price rises for UK mobile phone customers.

There's also talk about misleading mobile network advertising, patent agreements, takeover bids, satellite broadband and 4G data usage... plus a curious patent application from Google.

In this week's podcast, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge talk about the new Zapp mobile payment scheme, Google's healthcare plans and an ultra-secure smartphone.

Also on the agenda are HP's new phablets, Jimmy Wales joining a UK MVNO, Apple's in-app purchases and plenty of research about tablets.

This week's podcast starts with talk about money, as Google buys smart thermostat company Nest Labs while O2 UK closes its mobile Wallet product.

We're also looking at the decline of SMS text messaging in the UK, the end of the Cash4phones recycling business, an alleged security breach that wasn't what it seemed, mobile service on the Channel tunnel and the growth of 4G.

Mark Bridge talks to Florent Stroppa, General Manager Europe for mobile value-added service specialist OnMobile.

In today's programme Florent explains what 2014 holds for the mobile industry, what he thinks will happen in the slightly more-distant future - and what lessons we can learn from 2013.