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.

Natasha Cooper writes:

As someone who has been through more iPhone screens than I’d like to remember, when I recently upgraded to an iPhone 5s I was keen to keep it in one piece - for a few months at least. Cue the new CAT Active Urban Phone Case, which claims to protect your phones from falls of up to 1.8 meters using a reinforced material that can also be found in protective equipment for motor bike riders.

Analyst firm Ovum has published its mobile payment and mobile advertising predictions for this year.

Ovum expects continued technology and service innovation, notably around location-based applications, in the mobile payments space in 2014. However, there will be increasing complexity within the mobile payments ecosystem this year, and on-going challenges around the business model for digital wallet services.

Mark Bridge writes:

Farewell for another year, dear old International CES. The Las Vegas-based consumer electronics show is but a fading memory as the mobile industry starts preparing for next month’s GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

However, what happened in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas.

Mark Bridge writes:

In a way, it’s hard to believe that the first Apple iPhone wasn’t seen in public until this day seven years ago. It - and the trend towards one-piece smartphones with hardly any buttons - seems to have been with us for much longer.

Mark Bridge writes:

'Twas the week before Christmas, when all thro' the mobile industry
came a sudden burst of news-related activity.

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?

Iain, James and Mark begin this week's podcast with Apple's recent iOS 8 revelation and its plan to acquire Beats Electronics.

They then move on to discuss Samsung's Tizen-powered smartphone, a new flagship device from LG and the latest Microsoft Surface tablet - as well as a network takeover in Ireland, BlackBerry’s M2M moves and UK price changes for Vodafone.

It's our last podcast of the year, which is the traditional time for us to predict what'll be happening in the mobile phone industry during the next 12 months... from forthcoming consumer technology to deals between network operators.

As well as making our 2014 predictions, we'll also be reviewing those we made last year and discovering how accurate our forecasts for 2013 really were.

In this special feature we're talking to David Akka, who tells us why he says Android is dead, why Chromecast is an omen for the mobile industry, why OS companies are getting into hardware and what the future holds for the mobile industry.

David is UK managing director of Magic Software and describes himself as a 'recovering techie'. His personal blog is at davidakka.com.

There are some interesting partnerships discussed in today's podcast, including bada & Tizen, Intel & Motorola and LG & Microsoft. Plus there's the rest of the week's industry news, from UK 4G coverage to Apple's riotous iPhone launch in China.