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.

This week's podcast takes its usual look at the latest industry headlines, covering everything from tablet devices to network sharing. There's also a preview of Friday's "Definition of Mobile" event, which aims to show businesses how they can take advantage of mobile technology.

Google moves even further into the telecoms space, O2 introduces 'eco ratings' and some of technology's biggest names go shopping. All this - plus the possibility of mobile phones made from nut shells - is discussed by Iain, James and Mark.

Iain, James and Mark take their regular look at the UK's top mobile industry news stories. This week, Intel, Nokia, Ofcom, ZTE, Apple, Facebook and the City of London police are some of the organisations making the headlines.

This week we talk to mobile security expert Jack Wraith, who heads the Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum and the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum. Plus there's a discussion about all the week's other big news stories - from Android to Zeta-Jones!

Iain, James and Mark take their usual look at the week's mobile industry headlines, from high-level departures to mobile payments. There's also an interview with Anthony Erwin, founder of mobile dating and social networking company StreetSpark.