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:

Four months ago, Google unveiled a new way for consumers to buy an Android mobile phone. In fact, that’s pretty much what the first line of the press release said. The phone was the Nexus One and it was being sold online by Google.

You could buy it SIM-free or you could buy it with a contract – but you’d be buying it from Google’s online shop. You couldn’t buy it on a real high street.

John Forde writes:

As I sit tapping away on a keyboard, here at 30,000 feet above the Atlantic, I can't help but think...

Thank God Arthur Summerfield got it all wrong.

See, Arthur was the U.S. Postmaster General for President 'Ike' Eisenhower. And in 1959, he boldly predicted...

"Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."

Imagine. I'd hate to think what spam would look like, under those circumstances.

James Rosewell writes:

Back in January 2010 I wrote a brief review of the Google Nexus One that included my thoughts on the not-so-accurate voice dictation feature. From the marketing hype, I had expected to simply speak into the phone and a few seconds later my words would appear as a perfectly formed text message. The reality was somewhat disappointing. For all but the simplest short phrases it struggled to produce the intended words, making it inferior to even the touch-screen keyboard.

Mark Bridge writes:

Being an optimistic cynic isn’t easy. But, hey, I do my best.

Which is why I smiled benignly when I heard this week that WiFi provider The Cloud was offering a free app to O2 iPhone users. It's a simple tool called FastConnect and it'll make it easy for those O2 customers to find free WiFi access via hotspots powered by (you guessed it!) The Cloud.

Mark Bridge writes:

Cash is still king… but its days are numbered. That’s the message from a new report published this week by the Payments Council.

The Payments Council, which is a group of financial institutions that sets strategy for UK payments, has released ‘The Way We Pay 2010’. It shows how the last decade has seen a fall in the percentage of transactions using cash, from 73% in 1999 to 59% in 2009. In just five years time, cash transactions are expected to represent less than 50% – and a further fall to 45% is expected by 2019. Meanwhile, debit card spending in the UK rose from £65 billion in 1999 to £264bn in 2009.

In this week's podcast we talk about two of the big announcements from Google I/O: a new version of Android and the retail launch of smartwatches powered by 'Android Wear'.

We also talk about Android-based smartphones from Nokia and Blackphone, network complaints in the UK, a reduction in European roaming charges and mobile ticketing.

Messaging was very much on the agenda at Mobile World Congress this year, following Facebook's announcement that it was planning to acquire WhatsApp in a 19 billion dollar deal. So if the future for this type of internet-based 'over the top' messaging service looks good, what does this mean for SMS?

To find out more, we spoke to Stacy Adams of mBlox to learn what was happening in the messaging world, to find out how SMS is being integrated with mobile apps - and to discover some of the other ways SMS was being used by businesses today.

Today's podcast starts with a gentle warning to app developers from the Office of Fair Trading.

We then move on to Amazon's new tablets, HTC's sale of its Beats Electronics stake, Twitter's emergency alerts, UK government plans to improve mobile broadband on trains, customer complaints and the growth in adult content for mobile devices.

We start this week's edition of The Fonecast with confirmation that 4G coverage will be launched in the UK this year, thanks to Everything Everywhere.

However, all's not well in the world of mobile retail - as mystery shopping by a consumer organisation reports widespread misinformation from sales staff.

This week's edition of The Fonecast takes a look at the new Google Nexus 7 tablet, wonders what's next for RIM and awaits the arrival of the forthcoming Firefox mobile platform.

There's also talk about HTC's partnership with Pioneer, Vodafone's European reorganisation, the new BT WiFi brand, Ofcom complaints, tariff problems and international roaming.