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.

Ben Whitaker of Masabi talks about mobile ticketing, including his company's recent partnership with thetrainline.com that'll enable almost any mobile phone user to buy train tickets when they're on the move. (An extended version of the interview from Wednesday's podcast).

Apple announces the iPhone 4, Iridium prepares 72 new satellites and Orange reveals a phone charger powered by hot feet. In addition there's a conversation with Ben Whitaker of Masabi about his company's plans to introduce rail tickets on mobile phones across the UK.

HipLogic CEO Mark Anderson talks about his company's information and entertainment application, which is being preloaded onto mobile phones at The Carphone Warehouse. And, as usual, there's a look at all the week's other major mobile industry headlines.

Iain, James and Mark discuss the week's headlines, from the Nokia/Yahoo! partnership and Google's AdMob approval to one-sided phone calls. There's also an interview with Andrew Grieve and Paul Erickson from fSONA; a company that offers 'optical wireless' technology to relieve network capacity problems.

This week's podcast is dominated by the results from the Interphone 'brain cancer' mobile phone research, although there's also time for Iain, James and Mark to talk about Google, Bluechipworld, Vodafone MVNOs, giffgaff, 3D mobile video, HTC's legal action and houses without fixed-line phones.