British mobile crowd-sourcing firm OpenSignal has just raised $4 million (around £2.4 million) in a funding round led by Qualcomm, with O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and Passion Capital also participating.

OpenSignal offers consumers an app that shares real-world mobile phone coverage information, enabling users to see what levels of service other people have experienced.

Even at Mobile World Congress, the relevance of the mobile network operator can sometimes be forgotten. So for a different perspective on this year's event, we spoke to Samuel Johnston from British mobile crowd-sourcing firm OpenSignal.

Samuel discussed the announcements from MWC14 and OpenSignal's latest report into 4G LTE coverage around the world, as well as giving us an exclusive insight into OpenSignal's next research subject.

A new report about the state of 4G LTE coverage around the world has been published by UK-based business OpenSignal, which creates crowd-sourced mobile network coverage maps from its Android and iOS apps.

The report looks at two key concerns: download speeds and the proportion of time spent in an area covered by an LTE service.

Yesterday afternoon at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, crowdsourced coverage map provider OpenSignal was named the UK’s most innovative mobile company.

Five finalists took place in a final pitch and judging session as part of the Smart UK Project.

A BBC survey into 3G coverage across the UK has shown that people who were able to receive a data connection only managed to use a 3G signal for 75% of the time.

For almost a quarter of the time they were connecting to 2G GPRS technology.

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?

We begin this week's podcast with a discussion about the Heartbleed bug, the effect it's having on the mobile industry and the wider issues for all internet users.

We're also talking about the future of BlackBerry, UK 4G coverage, new CEOs, Bluetooth connectivity, privacy concerns and the next generation of mobile processors.

This week's podcast starts with news from Microsoft about an update to its Windows Phone platform and a cost-free OS offer to hardware manufacturers.

There's also a new flagship smartphone from Nokia, a roaming announcement from the European Parliament, a UK virtual mobile network from The Co-operative Group, a change at the top for Mozilla, retail expansion for Vodafone and an awkward end to BlackBerry's relationship with T-Mobile in the USA.

Acquisition announcements from Facebook and Intel are the first stories in this week's look at the latest UK mobile industry headlines.

They're followed by news about mobile payments, mobile banking, a phone with an invisible solar panel, customer complaints, low-cost 4G smartphones, productivity apps and an intriguing case of WhatsApp-itis.

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge are reunited for their regular weekly look at the latest UK mobile industry headlines.

Today they're talking about smart watches, an Apple iPhone announcement, the new HTC One M8, the closure of Ovivo Mobile, text spam, peer-to-peer messaging, government hacking and mergers.

Producing mobile phones for older customers requires much more than big buttons and a simple interface. At Mobile World Congress last month we spoke to two major players in this growing sector: Swedish company Doro and Austria's Emporia Telecom.

Our first conversation was with Harald Obereder, Chief Technology Officer at Emporia, who spoke to Mark Bridge about handset design and user interface design. This was followed by an interview with Chris Millington, Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland, about research and development in the 'senior tech' market.