New rules from UK telecoms regulator Ofcom will protect customers when they use their mobile phone on a foreign network. In addition, customers will be alerted if they are inadvertently roaming, perhaps because they're near an international border.

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.

Iain Graham writes:

Text language. Why do they do it?  What an interesting question!  Normally asked by people who have never ever sent a text, believing it to be the invention of the devil!! "Texters are vandals, doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours eight hundred years ago" asserted Jhn (sorry) John Humphrys of Radio Four fame writing in the Daily Mail. The new 'text language' has been blamed for many things including...

Mark Bridge writes:

“Google offers New Model for Consumers to buy a Mobile Phone”. Not my words but those of Vodafone as it announced it was the first operator to bring the new Google phone offer to Europe.

There’s a lot of talk about Google’s online ordering process for its Nexus One smartphone… or ‘superphone’ as the company described it at yesterday’s launch.

Mark Bridge writes:

I really don’t like to complain. Honestly, I don’t. I’m an optimist. True, I can be a bit of a cynic – but that’s because I like to see things work first time.

So when I saw a headline that said “Shopping via mobile phone causes concerns for consumers”, I wasn’t surprised. Disappointed but not surprised.

And then I looked closer – and I got annoyed. Not annoyed at the companies that make mobile shopping so disappointing. No, annoyed at the organisation that published the report.

Mark Bridge writes:

“Leave them alone, they’re just kids”

My word, Anakin Skywalker was a smart boy. Child prodigy. Wunderkind. Genius, some would say, albeit fictional.

But, without the benefit of hindsight (or the Star Wars box set, as many would call it), very few people would have expected him to marry his babysitter, fall into a volcano, turn to the Dark Side and end up looking like the late Sebastian Shaw.

Which brings me to the mobile phone industry.

Mark Bridge writes:

At this time of year it’s something of a tradition – certainly within the mobile industry – to make predictions for the year ahead. It’s a trend we’ve followed with The Fonecast… and we’ve done reasonably well over the last few years.

We’ll be making this year’s predictions for 2010 in our programme on 23rd December. Ahead of that, I’ve been listening to our last show of 2008 to see what we thought 2009 would hold for us.

There's plenty of variety in The Fonecast this week. We start the podcast with news of MeeGo's resurrection by Finnish smartphone company Jolla before talking about a mobile network that’s giving away mobile data whenever its customers watch video advertisements.

There's also time to discuss Telefonica's recent deals, the rise of free WiFi availability, tablet-related legal action, malware in the Apple App Store and the truth behind a recent 'exploding mobile phone' story.

In this special feature we're talking to Ian Brown from Axell Wireless about mobile phone coverage on the London Underground.

WiFi is now available on a number of London Underground stations - so why is it taking so long to arrange mobile phone service on the Tube?

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.

In this week's podcast we're talking about the forthcoming Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system, the UK launch of the Amazon Appstore and the GSMA's plans to make international roaming easier to understand.

There's also time to discuss new mobile tariffs from Virgin Media, cars that call for help after an accident, some mobile shopping research and LG's future as a tablet manufacturer.

Iain Graham visits Faisal Sheikh of London-based Fone Doctors in today's audio feature.

They talk about the recent Fone Doctors relocation to new offices near London Bridge and Faisal's plans for a franchise outlet at Liverpool Street station before moving on to discuss training, customer service, the rise of the tablet and the demise of customer service.