Telefonica UK and Chargemaster plc have announced a partnership that’ll see O2 SIM cards used in the machine-to-machine technology connecting Chargemaster’s UK-wide network of electric vehicle charging points.

Chargemaster recently announced a national charging network called POLAR. It’s the UK’s largest private sector-funded network, with around 4,000 electric vehicle charging bays due to be installed in towns and cities across the UK by the end of 2012.

Mobile network operators are facing a seven-fold increase in the cost of delivering data across their networks, according to Juniper Research.

As a result, it says these mobile networks need to deal with the costs of data delivery and the inefficiencies in base station operations if they are to remain economically viable.

O2 has published the latest scores from its Eco rating scheme. Nokia's C6-01 and E7-00 topped the list, both scoring 4.1 out of 5, followed by the Samsung Galaxy Mini, the Sony Ericsson X8 and the Nokia C7-02 - all with 4 points.

The Eco ratings were launched in August last year as part of O2's Think Big sustainability programme.

LG Electronics says it’ll replace all conventional magnesium inside its mobile phones with ‘eco-magnesium’ by 2012.

Mark Bridge writes:

Yesterday I spotted a new blog page from O2-supported MVNO giffgaff. The company’s head of digital marketing Rob Gotlieb announced the finished version of a promotional film – and mentioned the official voice of giffgaff, voiceover artist Tom Oldham (who, interestingly, was also the voice on Vodafone ads at one point). And for a moment I thought “Official voice?  You what?”

Mark Bridge writes:

“Okay, Mr Bridge, just relax. This won’t hurt a bit. I just need to… oh, hold on a moment, my phone’s crashed. I’ll just pop the battery out and we can start again.”

Some years ago I read an article in Fast Company magazine. Entitled “They Write the Right Stuff”, it explained how NASA’s software engineers couldn’t afford to make errors because any mistakes were likely to kill their colleagues.

That need to check, double-check and then check again was also one of the reasons the space agency ended up looking on eBay for tried-and-tested obsolete components. But now things seem to be swinging towards the opposite end of the scale.

Mark Bridge writes:

A few months ago James wrote about the slow adoption of mobile and contactless payments in the UK. Now we hear that Kenya’s M-PESA mobile money transfer service has arrived here. Yes, m-payments are finally going mainstream in the United Kingdom. Well, sort of. Well, alright, not at all really. What’s happened is that people in the UK are now able to send money to M-PESA users in Kenya. But what about the progress of mobile payments in the UK?

James Rosewell writes:

It seems to be accepted that the Apple iPhone will be the top selling mobile phone this Christmas now it’s available on almost every UK network. The more interesting question is which handsets will hold the number 2 to 5 positions - and what operating system will they be running when the smartphone scores are announced in the new year?

Microsoft announced Windows Phone last week and I commented on the importance of persuading their heartland fans to move from iPhone and other platforms to Windows Phone. Disappointingly, finding a mobile retailer willing to sell a Windows Phone is not easy at the moment. Orange tell me they’ve withdrawn the one model they were going to offer from Toshiba. Vodafone didn’t even know what a Windows Phone was.

Iain Graham writes:

I have just bought (well, been given) a new mobile phone!  It, of course, cost me nothing, because we still haven't learnt in this industry, but it came with the now obligatory, shrink-wrapped, 140-page instruction manual on how to use it!!  A perfect cure for insomnia!  I read the opening page or two and it might as well have been written in Serbo-Croatian for all the sense it made to me!!  (I then realised it WAS written in Serbo-Croatian and so I turned to the correct language section) and it was just as incomprehensible!

Even worse, the manufacturers (who are too tight to pay for the printing in the name of 'going green') put the instruction manual on a CD!!

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.

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

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.

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.