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:

In recent years we’ve seen many a newspaper headline about the high charges for mobile data when abroad. Horror stories that warned of bills exceeding £1000 per week.

James Rosewell writes:

The merger of T-Mobile and Orange on 1st April 2010 is one of the most significant events in the evolution of the UK mobile industry since the original creation of Orange and 1-2-1 in the 90s. From now on the UK will have 4 mobile networks, and one of those networks will have ~35% of the market. A 35% market share comes with a lot of potential. Not only can standards be influenced in a way previously unimaginable in the UK, but economies of scale can be translated into profits.

Iain Graham writes:

This is a true story. It may not be a particularly relevant story - but it is a true story.

I think I have just realised that I have to be serious about my new career as a Grumpy Old Man (GOM) and come to terms with the fact that it is not new, just a natural progression from so many years as a Grumpy Young Man (GYM)!

James Rosewell writes:

The mobile techie community has known about mobile networks and indeed some handsets providing unique information about mobile devices and customers for a long time. Collin Mulliner, a graduate student at the Technische Universitat Berlin, has recently bought the issue to the attention of the public during a talk at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver.

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.

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.

The Fonecast predicts 2015: Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge gather round a sapphire crystal ball and make their forecasts for the next 12 months in the mobile industry.

Whose product line won't survive until December 2015? What will happen with the BT/EE merger? Which new features will be introduced by smartphone manufacturers?

It's time for another news-packed mobile industry podcast from TheFonecast.com, starting with the European Parliament's latest ruling on in-car emergency communication.

After that we're talking about Microsoft's departure from the Nook eBook business, Three UK's 4G growth, Acer's tablet-sized phone, EE's rural coverage solution and some interesting new research about mobile-enabled customer service.

We begin this week's podcast with updates on two topics we discussed last week: the potential purchase of a UK mobile network by BT - and the crowd-funded Jolla Tablet.

After that we talk about the GSMA's reaction to national roaming, the potential death of the landline, a new threat to Google, management changes and advertising for 4G data.