A new report from Strategy Analytics shows that over 450 million households worldwide currently have a WiFi connection, which is a 5% increase from last year.

The UK is fourth on the list with 72.1% penetration, behind Norway (76.2%), South Korea (76.4%) and the Netherlands (80.4%).

Nokia Networks - formerly known as NSN - has agreed to acquire Panasonic’s 3G and LTE base station system business.

The deal is expected to be finalised next month.

A new report about the state of 4G LTE coverage around the world has been published by UK-based business OpenSignal, which creates crowd-sourced mobile network coverage maps from its Android and iOS apps.

The report looks at two key concerns: download speeds and the proportion of time spent in an area covered by an LTE service.

Japanese technology company NEC Corporation says it has stopped developing, making and selling smartphones via its NEC CASIO Mobile Communications business.

The smartphone business is controlled by NEC, with Casio and Hitachi each owning a minority share.

Mobile payment service iZettle, which enables businesses to accept credit and debit card payments via a smartphone, is now able to process Japan Credit Bureau (JCB) cards in the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

The company says this makes it the first mobile payment solution in Europe to accept JCB 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?

This week we're talking about BlackBerry's options for the future, Vodafone's 4G launch, Apple's patent victory and LG's new smartphone.

We also discuss ZTE selling its Firefox phones on eBay, Nokia's acquisition of NSN, the cost of phone calls in Europe, the controversy about recycling bins that monitor footfall and the new face promoting HTC.

The Motorola Moto X smartphone opens this week's show, despite not having a European release... but there's plenty of other UK news.

We talk about O2's plans to launch 4G mobile services later this month, we look at the ASA's ruling against EE, we contemplate the government's plans to eliminate some mobile 'black spots', we wonder when Android's market share will start to shrink - and we discuss many other mobile telecom stories as well.

James Rosewell interviews Ruth Barnett, head of communications at British-based technology company SwiftKey.

As well as talking about the SwiftKey keyboard app they also discuss competition in the mobile application space, working with manufacturers and the opportunities presented by 'Bring Your Own Device' schemes.

In this week's show we look at Google's new product announcements, O2's closure of its mobile telecare service and the clearance of radio frequencies for 4G services.

We also talk about the latest collection of quarterly results from Apple, Samsung, Amazon, LG and Facebook. Who's doing well - and should anyone be worried?

We start this week's show by discussing the recent quarterly results from Google, Nokia, Vodafone and Microsoft.

There's also time to talk about SIM security, Ubuntu's crowd-funded smartphone, the HTC One mini, smart watches and an unusual process for recharging your phone battery.