Mobile roaming, messaging and networking Syniverse is selling part of MACH to complete its takeover process.

Syniverse has been given the go-ahead to acquire its rival but the European Commission insisted that most of MACH’s data clearing and near real-time roaming data exchange business in the European Economic Area was sold to another buyer.

Voice over IP service Skype has announced the first countries where customers will be able to use its direct mobile operator billing option. This will let customers pay for Skype credit by charging it to their mobile phone account.

The facility has just been launched in Russia and will soon be enabled in the USA and Canada as well.

Mobile billing specialist MACH is launching direct mobile operator billing for online payments and app purchases in the UK. The service, which uses the MACH Direct Billing Gateway and includes support for the Payforit scheme, will be available via all the UK’s major mobile phone networks.

Direct mobile operator billing enables mobile subscribers to pay for apps and other online goods by charging them to their mobile phone account.

Nokia reveals its first two Windows Phone 8 smartphones in this week's podcast, while Amazon announces a handful of new tablets.

And if that wasn't enough, there's an update from Everything Everywhere about its plans for 4G in the UK.

Direct operator billing specialist MACH has been chosen to help VoIP company Skype offer direct-to-carrier billing in key markets from October.

It means that Skype customers in certain countries will be able to buy call credit by adding it to their mobile phone account rather than paying via debit or credit card.

Mark Bridge writes:

A few months ago I was at the launch of DataWind’s UbiSurfer netbook, a device that includes 12 months of internet access with the surprisingly low purchase price. A light-hearted presentation compared the UbiSurfer's web access with the Apple iPhone’s “there’s an app for that” TV campaign – and reminded us that many popular web-based iPhone apps cost money whilst web pages were free to access. Pay for a currency converter – or access one online for nothing. Pay for a train timetable application – or go to the mobile web for free.

Commonsense may send consumers straight to the web… but convenience and marketing has still sent plenty to the Apple App Store, which celebrated two billion downloads recently. I didn’t think much more about this until I saw a report in Newsweek earlier this month.

James Rosewell writes:

Whilst the mainstream press were busy covering the marketing launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 or 'Windows Phone' as it’ll now be known, I spent some time with the geeks looking under the hood at Microsoft’s new desktop (Windows 7) and server (Server 2008 R2) operating systems. The event was packed full of IT professionals whose jobs and careers are heavily involved with Microsoft. They were there to learn about the latest products ready for deploying them within their organisations. These are the people that keep e-mail systems working, decide what applications you’ll be using at work, choose the technology that companies use on the web and increasingly steer corporate mobile strategy.

So what mobile phones were these people using?

Mark Bridge writes:

Last week in one of my opinion pieces I had a bit of a go at a mobile phone price comparison website. I'd only just forgiven them when I saw another survey from another mobile phone price comparison website. This one said shopping for a mobile phone at a price comparison website could be up to 40% cheaper than visiting the high street. And then I took a closer look...

Mark Bridge writes:

With over 100,000 people having signed its petition in four months, there’s no denying that the Terminate The Rate campaign is attracting supporters. And with promises including “BT and 3 are working together on a petition that will lower your phone bill by reducing the level of Mobile Termination Rates”, it’s easy to see why.

But what’s the point of all the campaigning - and has it really achieved anything?  Terminate The Rate says mobile networks charge a Mobile Termination Rate of around 4.7p per minute for connecting a call to another network. That’s a lot of money over the course of a year. But those networks also pay that 4.7p when calls are connected to them, which cancels out a fair bit of it.

Mark Bridge writes:

Earlier this week Vodafone announced Vodafone 360 under the headline “Bringing your world together”. It all sounds very promising – and it reminded me of another Vodafone launch nine years before. It was September 2000 when Vizzavi appeared in the UK...

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.