UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has agreed to make radio spectrum available for transport operators to offer faster broadband connections to passengers on aircraft, boats, railway trains and coaches.

Each vehicle could receive a data connection of around 50Mbit/sec, providing more than 10Mbps via WiFi to an individual passenger.

UK telecom regulator Ofcom has published a consultation about authorising satellite-powered broadband systems that can provide internet connections on moving vehicles, including aircraft, ships, coaches and trains.

These systems, which are known as Earth Stations on Mobile Platforms (ESOMPs), can outperform cellular signals and current satellite-based internet connections on moving vehicles.

Customers on Brighton & Hove buses can now use a mobile phone app instead of cash when they want to buy a ticket, although the option is currently only available on a few services and with certain ticket types.

Watford-based Corethree has provided the mobile ticketing platform.

The Transport for South Hampshire council partnership says local bus passengers will soon be able to enjoy free WiFi on their smartphones, tablets and laptops. The service will be rolled out from this month following a £4.5 million bid to the Department for Transport’s Better Bus Area Fund and additional investment from bus operators.

As well as providing free WiFi, the funding will be used to improve & refurbish buses, for driver training and to offer up-to-date bus timetable information via smartphones.

Public transport operator Stagecoach Group has launched a trial of NFC bus tickets in partnership with Everything Everywhere. It’s enabling some customers on the Stagecoach bus network in Cambridgeshire to use their Orange ‘Quick Tap’ NFC phones as tickets.

The scheme uses the Department of Transport’s preferred ITSO ticketing technology and is described as the UK’s first Government-standard commercial deployment of mobile contactless transport ticketing.

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?

We start this week's podcast with a conversation about Facebook before moving on to the legal battle between Motorola and Apple, some interesting quarterly results, Google's Android watchdog, jobs, ads... and much more.

John Batchelor from wefarmit.com talks to us about the role of mobile technology in farming, from farm-friendly apps to rugged mobiles.

Apple, Samsung and Motorola have all published their quarterly results. We talk about these differing figures before moving on to O2's privacy problem, T-Mobile's new unlimited tariff, HP's plans for webOS and last year's growth in tablet sales.

James Rosewell introduces the 51Degrees.mobi Mobile Trends 2011 white paper, explaining how Apple's share of mobile web browsing is apparently falling. We also discuss several other mobile web trends in the document, which covers Europe, the USA and India.

We start this week's show with news of RIM's new CEO before moving on to another big-name departure at Yahoo. Then it's time for some impressive financial results, a new m-commerce device and a mobile phone insurance fraudster.