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.

We start this week's show with news about the European Commission's plans to end mobile roaming charges completely from next year.

We're also talking about the future facing Twitter and Dell, Vodafone's security challenges in Germany, app development, wireless charging, mobile payments and Nokia's Android-based smartphones.

This week's show is packed with new products, including two iPhones, three smartwatches, two Android smartphones and a couple of innovative lens-based camera accessories.

We also find time to talk about mobile security, virtual networks and being dishonest via text message.

We're back after a short break last week - and just in time for three of the biggest industry news stories of the year.

Microsoft's CEO announces his retirement, then Vodafone sells its US operation for $130 billion... and now Nokia's mobile phone business is being bought. Alongside these reports there's also time to talk about 4G in the UK, children with mobiles, roaming charges and the future of smartphones.

In this special feature we're talking to David Akka, who tells us why he says Android is dead, why Chromecast is an omen for the mobile industry, why OS companies are getting into hardware and what the future holds for the mobile industry.

David is UK managing director of Magic Software and describes himself as a 'recovering techie'. His personal blog is at davidakka.com.

There's good news for Telefonica as it's chosen to support the UK's smart meter rollout - but bad news for fans of the Microsoft Tag barcode, which is being discontinued in a couple of years' time.

We're also talking about drivers who use mobile phones illegally, Amazon's new service for mobile developers, the forthcoming Kazam smartphone, mobile advertising, satellite broadband, wearable security accessories and a word that's completely unacceptable to Motorola.