Online parenting site BabyCentre has published a survey that shows over half of all mums considered their smartphone to be an ‘essential tool’ to help with parenting.

Almost three in five said it helped to reduce the isolation of new motherhood, while 40% described their mobile device as a ‘backup brain’.

Mark Windle, head of marketing at OpenCloud, predicts that this year’s reduction in the number of traditional telecoms operators in some countries will provide an opportunity for other operators to innovate and capture market share in 2016.

He says next year will be a year of rapid change for telecoms… whether it’s MVNO disruption, competitive tariff pricing or simply defence from the ‘dark art’ of hacking.

Mark Bridge writes:

The most memorable moments in life often go unrecorded. You don't have your camera in your hands. Your finger is still hovering over the 'pause' button on your audio recorder. Or you were simply too busy experiencing whatever was happening. It's all about the one that got away.

That's where Kapture can help.

Mark Bridge writes:

James Rosewell shows me a colourful roll of paper that's the width of an iPhone but well over three metres long. When I look closer, I can see it's a printed copy of the Wall Street Journal's mobile website. That's a lot of scrolling to do... and a pretty unfriendly user experience for anyone reading the news online. Why does it work so badly?

This week’s edition of The Fonecast includes all the latest stories from the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Iain, Mark and James look at the week’s headlines from the UK, while Mobile News reporter MaryLou Costa joins them from the congress itself.

Iain Graham, Mark Bridge and James Rosewell take their regular look at the week's mobile industry news headlines - and Faisal Sheikh from Fone Doctors explains why laptops are the future for the mobile industry.

Chris Caudle from the IMPDA explains how he plans to help dealers combat mobile phone crime and talks about his organisation's recent activities. Plus, as usual, the team takes its weekly look at the latest mobile industry headlines.

Iain, Mark and James from The Fonecast take their usual look at the latest headlines from the mobile industry. There's talk about termination charges, premium SMS, manufacturers' quarterly results, crossing the road with a mobile... and Barack's BlackBerry.

In The Fonecast this week we're investigating mobile crime, with contributions from Detective Inspector Stephen Leonard and MICAF's Jack Wraith. Plus, as usual, we talk about the week's industry headlines.