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.

Here’s an edited transcript of our new monthly podcast, broadcast on 30th January 2015.

[Iain Graham]: Hello, it's Friday 30th January 2015. Welcome to this month's edition of The Fonecast. That’s right, you heard correctly: we’ve temporarily moved to a monthly format. If you’d like to join 51Degrees in sponsoring the podcast and returning us to weekly programmes, please get in touch via our website. Now, on with the show.

Mark Bridge writes:

Every week we produce a half-hour podcast that covers all the biggest news headlines for the UK mobile phone industry.

Thanks to a special offer from Scribie.com, we can also offer a transcription of last week’s programme.

VOA News writes:

New market research has many technology experts thinking the era of the personal computer (PC) is coming to an end as consumers worldwide begin to embrace tablet computers and smartphones.

This week's edition of The Fonecast has more Orange and Google news than usual, although there's also plenty of talk about all the other recent industry headlines. And there's an in-depth review of the Movon MB80 Bluetooth wristband as well.

Iain, James and Mark talk about mobile phone health concerns, Nokia's legal action against Apple, the return of the rumoured Google gPhone, open source software, an art exhibition controlled by text messages... and much more.

This week's edition of The Fonecast includes talk about Motorola's next Android phone, the introduction of '999 roaming' in the UK, quarterly results from Nokia and loads of other industry news stories as well.

The Amazon Kindle and the Palm Pre arrive in the UK... and a texting bottle-top causes a disagreement. Plus, in our feature, Tom Hume from Future Platforms talks about mobile marketing.

With the Apple iPhone still making headlines, Faisal Sheikh from Fone Doctors tells us what the new multi-network deal will mean for everyone. And, as usual, the team takes its regular look at the rest of the week's industry news.