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:

Patents were a very popular topic of conversation last week. Google sold its Motorola Mobility smartphone business to Lenovo but hung on to most of the patents. Does this mean the patents were the most valuable part of the business? Well, when you look at the difference between the original purchase price and the sale price, it seems a reasonable conclusion.

Mark Bridge writes:

As the final days before this year’s Mobile World Congress approach, we discover there are two types of scheduled news announcements from the wireless telecoms industry.

There are the announcements delayed until MWC begins because the company wants to be part of the buzz at Barcelona. And there are the announcements made in the fortnight beforehand because they don’t want their story to get lost.

Mark Bridge writes:

Mention 'anonymity' to anyone these days and it's pretty likely they'll start talking about Facebook. Maybe Google Street View, maybe RF chips in passports... but probably Facebook.

This 'over sharing' of personal information is a far cry from the situation a few years ago. Once, no-one on the internet really admitted who they were. That New Yorker cartoon - "Nobody knows you're a dog" - wasn't far off the truth. You couldn't tell a dungeonmaster from a librarian when they were online.

In this week's podcast we discuss Apple's legal settlement with Nokia, 4G plans for the UK, Everything Everywhere's new shops, HP's new tablet and the rest of the UK's industry news headlines.

Todd Levy of BloomWorlds.com talks to us about developing a family-friendly application store. He explains how he's trying to help 'Android parents' and their children - and why he's convinced there's room in the market for independent app stores.

Iain, James and Mark discuss Monday's big Apple announcements before talking about 4G LTE interference, Windows on tablets, Acer's problems, a new price comparison site and a mountain rescue that was helped by a cameraphone.

Iain Graham and Mark Bridge discuss the recent report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The IARC has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields - 'mobile phone radiation' - as being possibly carcinogenic, so Iain and Mark find out what this means.

Iain, James and Mark discuss the week's top mobile news headlines, covering the UK's first 4G trial, Google's mobile payments, Symbian's plans, Ofcom's broadband study and some customer satisfaction research.