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, 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:

New Apple products! New Android smart watches!

You’d be forgiven for not having noticed either of those news stories last week. Apple did indeed announce a new iPhone – but it was simply a new iPhone 5c with just 8MB of memory.

Mark Bridge writes:

Great news for mobile phone users. Ofcom’s new rules preventing unexpected mid-contract price rises came into force last week, which means UK consumers can no longer be surprised by their subscription charge increasing while they’re still locked into a minimum-term deal.

Mark Bridge writes:

Mobile networks aren’t what they used to be. As last week’s interview with Vince Russell of The Cloud demonstrated, more and more customers are relying on WiFi to augment their mobile data service.

Truphone is now planning to do exactly the same with voice calls and text messages by linking its mobile network with WiFi for even wider coverage.

Mark Bridge writes:

Apple launches a new product and BlackBerry pushes it out of the headlines. Who’d have thought it, eh?

Yes, Apple’s new $799 128GB iPad didn’t get much of a mention in the mobile press last week - thanks to the new BlackBerry 10 platform and two new smartphones. Memories of Stephen Bates’s awkward BBC interviews were soon forgotten as the touchscreen Z10 appeared and quickly hit the shelves of UK retailers.

Ofcom, the UK government and the major networks have all agreed a timetable for 4G to be launched across the UK.

We're talking about those plans in this week's podcast - and taking a look at all the other top mobile industry stories as well, from US mergers and leaky tablets to free WiFi and forthcoming quarterly results.

In this week's podcast we're talking about Apple's apology for its Maps app, we're looking at RIM's BlackBerry 10 news and we're discussing the new UK company formed by Vodafone and O2.

As well as this there's tablet news from Barnes and Noble, there are record-breaking SIM-only contract sales and there's a new mobile-friendly OS on the loose.

We start this week's programme by talking about the iPhone 5 and iOS6 before moving on to HTC's forthcoming Windows Phone 8 devices.

There's also some mobile payment news, online shopping research, a health study, data about tablet manufacturing and machine-to-machine connection figures.

In this special podcast feature we’re looking inside the world of mobile gaming - from the commercial concerns of game development to the current trends affecting mobile game design.

Our guide is Sandy Duncan, CEO of YoYo Games.

Although last week's Apple iPhone 5 announcement dominated the headlines, there's still plenty more to talk about.

We have a prediction about the billionth Android handset, we look at Acer's cancelled smartphone launch and we discuss the growth of mobile messaging.