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.

Iain Graham writes:

I recently had to, as a last resort, call the customer service department of a large communications company about a problem I currently have with a piece of equipment. I know I could have looked in the 150-page accompanying instruction manual but I haven't got half my life to spare! (as I mentioned in my previous blog piece on handsets!)

Businesses these days are telling us "Customer service has been outsourced to the Indian subcontinent and technologically streamlined in order to offer our customers a better, more efficient service"!

Mark Bridge writes:

So – you’re thinking about buying a new mobile phone. A smartphone. And yes, I mean a real smartphone, not just something with a touchscreen that looks nice.

I know, I know. You’re tempted by the iPhone. It’s all those apps, isn’t it?  100,000 and counting.

Yet Android is catching up. Admittedly it’s still got a long way to go to match that six-figure total… but the signs are certainly there.

Mark Bridge writes:

I really don’t want to make a habit of pointing at surveys and laughing – or even scratching my head in the kind of theatrical gesture used by Stan Laurel – but I should imagine there was some wry amusement at Strategy Analytics this week.

They’d been talking to car owners in Europe and the USA about their preferred brand for Bluetooth headsets and speakerphones. In the United States, 45% of respondents said Bose was their preferred brand. Excellent news for Bose. Excellent news for Bose stockists. Except...

Mark Bridge writes:

I’m always on the lookout for technology that’ll make life easier. That’s one of the reasons the Movon MB80 caught my eye. It’s a Bluetooth handsfree unit that you wear on your wrist. The MB80 is designed for the times your phone’s not convenient and you don’t want to miss a call – but you also don’t want to wear a Bluetooth headset. Perhaps you’re playing sports or are out for an evening with friends. The Movon Bluetooth wristband rings or vibrates when someone calls – and then can be used as a handsfree loudspeaker.

James Rosewell writes:

"Mobile: new cancer alert" - The Daily Telegraph

The front page of Saturday's Telegraph led with the headline "Mobiles: new cancer alert" re-igniting fears about mobile phone usage. The centrepiece of the article is "a £20 million, decade long investigation, overseen by the World Health Organization (WHO) will publish evidence that heavy [mobile phone] users face a higher risk of developing brain tumors later in life". How should this topic be reported and what will it mean for our industry?

This week's podcast begins with Ofcom's plans to cut the wholesale cost of inter-network mobile phone calls. But what benefit will consumers see?

Iain, James and Mark then move on to discuss luxury smartphones, a new handset on the high street, mobile broadband for aircraft passengers, government monitoring, the growth of smartphones - and 4G-equipped donkeys.

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.

This week we're talking about a UK government deal to prevent bill shock, good news for some UK consumers visiting the USA, a court threat to HTC sales, new high-speed satellite broadband, mobile search, mobile shopping and much more.

Join Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge for an informed and entertaining look at all the major mobile industry news stories from the past seven days.

If you've created a mobile application, you'll want people to download it, use it and tell their friends. But how can you ensure that as many people as possible know about your app?

Today's podcast is designed to help with some of the answers. It was recorded in London at the very first App Promotion Summit earlier this year.

It feels like many people are hanging on to mobile advertising as the future of mobile marketing.

Yet there's much more to mobile marketing than the banner ad. In this podcast a panel of experts considers the latest trends and innovation that could change the future of marketing.