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.

John Barton discusses LG's recent successes - including last week's Mobile News Awards wins - and talks about its current UK activities. Plus, as usual, the team takes a look at the latest activity in the UK mobile phone industry.

This week on The Fonecast there's news about the Apple iPhone 3.0 update and all the other mobile industry headlines from the last seven days. In addition we talk to Chris Caudle from the IMPDA about the ways that high-street dealers are coping with the current economic situation.

The Fonecast takes its regular weekly look at the latest mobile news headlines, including a new technology partnership between Barclaycard and Orange. There's also an introduction to the relatively recent phenomenon of 'App Stores'.

This week's edition of The Fonecast talks about mobile phone recycling with Chris Rogerson from ShP Limited - the company behind Mopay. And, as usual, there's our look at industry headlines from the last seven days.

In The Fonecast this week there's an in-depth look at the new Emporio Armani phone produced by Samsung. We also talk about the latest mobile industry headlines, from Vodafone redundancies to mobile viruses.