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:

Internet veteran Yahoo! provided last week’s biggest news, at least in terms of press coverage. It appointed Marissa Mayer as its President and Chief Executive Officer, having enticed her away from Google after 13 years.

Mark Bridge writes:

As summer approaches, so the media’s interest in mobile phone roaming increases. Once again, the maximum price of calls and texts when abroad in Europe is falling – but this year there’s something different on the horizon. The European parliament has just approved the EU’s plans to introduce a price cap for mobile data... and in a couple of years’ time we’ll be able to choose a completely separate network to help cut roaming costs.

Mark Bridge writes:

I’m reminded of a sketch from BBC TV’s ‘The Young Ones’ in 1982. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are waiting around.

“What’s new?”, asks Pestilence. “Microchip technology”, replies one of the others. “That’s quite a new thing, isn’t it?”

Quite new. It’s probably the best description for much of last week’s mobile industry news.

Mark Bridge writes:

Welcome to this week's news summary from The Fonecast. Sorry it's late but I have a reasonably good excuse. On Friday I was in central London to meet Hans Eriksson of Bambuser. He was about to stream his life online for 24 hours, relying on social networking to find him off-beat attractions. You'll find our conversation on TheFonecast.com – and the results are at bambuserchallenge.tumblr.com

Mark Bridge writes:

I've written previously about the changes happening to mobile application stores. Last week I was talking to Todd Levy about the family-friendly application store he's planning to launch. He explained how BloomWorlds would be curated to provide trusted reviews that weren't skewed by the app developers themselves.

The team take a good look at the N95 8GB from Nokia, speak to Stephen Spillett about his plans for Mainline, and bring you all the news and rumours from the past 7 days.

To start the New Year the team look back on 2007, review the Motorola W377 and bring you all the festive seasons rumours and news.

This week the team takes its regular look at mobile news headlines from the last week. We revisit our predictions from 2006, make new predictions for 2008 and also review the music-playing Samsung F210.

Iain, Mark and James take a good look at the mobile industry's news headlines from the last week. There's also an interview with Nokia's Tom Erskine about the new "Nokia Comes With Music" service and a review of the Giorgio Armani–Samsung luxury mobile phone.

This week 'The Fonecast' takes its regular look at mobile industry headlines from the last 7 days. We also interview Mary-Carol Harris about the O2 Wallet project and review the new Nokia N82.