Mark Bridge writes:

As 2011 draws to a close, many of us start looking towards 2012 and wondering what’ll be happening in the mobile phone industry. Here at The Fonecast we’ve invited a handful of industry experts and business leaders to offer us their thoughts about the coming year.

Today’s podcast contains analysis and insight from Hans Eriksson, Steve Litchfield, Dr Windsor Holden, Dr Mark Smith and Jack Wraith MBE.

We've brought together a handful of experts and business leaders to discover what they think will happen in the mobile telecom industry next year. Listen to predictions for 2012 from Hans Eriksson, Steve Litchfield, Mark Smith, Windsor Holden and Jack Wraith.

Mark Bridge writes:

In this week's podcast feature we're joined by Jack Wraith, chief executive for the Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum and chairman of the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum.

He talks to Iain Graham about the current state of voicemail security and the improvements to mobile security we've seen in the last few years.

As 'voicemail hacking' news stories continue, Iain Graham talks to mobile industry crime-fighter Jack Wraith. Jack discusses mobile phone security from his position as head of the Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum and the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum.

If there was one thing that mobile security expert Jack Wraith could say to every new mobile phone owner, it would be "go and register the phone on immobilise.com". That's the UK's national property register, which is linked to the Police national mobile property database.

Jack is our guest in this week's podcast. As the man who heads the Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum and the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum he's well-placed to offer an informed opinion.

Mark Bridge writes:

Recent figures released by ABI Research have prompted the market intelligence company to ask whether Google is losing control of the Android ecosystem.

At first glance, Android dominated smartphone shipments for the final quarter of 2013. ABI Research says 77% of the 287 million smartphones shipped in Q4 2013 were running Android.

Robin Kent writes:

After initially suffering from slow pick up by consumers, 4G has begun to accelerate, and is now well on the way to the forecasted one billion subscribers by 2017. In fact EE, owner of T-Mobile and Orange, recently announced the addition of 493,000 new 4G customers to its existing base of 1.2 million.

Mark Bridge writes:

A new report has highlighted the issue of poor mobile phone coverage in rural Sussex villages. BBC Sussex invited me onto their ‘Sussex Breakfast’ radio show to explain what could be done - and, as usual, I made enough notes for a lecture rather than a three-minute interview.

Here’s what I would have liked to have said if I’d been given a disproportionate amount of time to talk.

Mark Bridge writes:

Great news for mobile phone users. Ofcom’s new rules preventing unexpected mid-contract price rises came into force last week, which means UK consumers can no longer be surprised by their subscription charge increasing while they’re still locked into a minimum-term deal.

Mark Bridge writes:

This week, new Ofcom rules came into force. They’re designed to avoid unexpected price rises during the minimum term of a mobile phone contract. Yes, just because you signed a fixed-term contract doesn’t mean the charges can’t increase. Networks said they needed this option in case of inflation or regulatory changes. Customers felt trapped.

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.