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, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge take their regular look at news for the UK mobile phone industry, from patent wars to irresponsible texting – and from job cuts to new CEOs.

Clothing and homewear retailer Next has started selling its own-brand tablet device. The Next 10-inch Tablet runs the Android operating system with an ARM11 processor, has 2GB of expandable memory and offers WiFi (but not mobile) connectivity. Pricing is £180.00 plus delivery.

This week's podcast from The Fonecast takes its regular look at news for the UK mobile phone industry, from the new BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to free Facebook access on Three UK.

There's also an interview with Dave Tharp of Roulette Cricket about his company's success in last week's final of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 competition.

India's Supreme Court has set 25th October as the next hearing for Vodafone's tax appeal. Vodafone could owe the Indian government more than 120 billion rupees (around £1.7 billion) following a court ruling earlier this month, although the company insists nothing is due. The case centres on Vodafone's 2007 purchase of Hutchison's Indian business, which saw Netherlands-based Vodafone International acquiring a stake in Hong Kong-based Hutchison; the stake was owned by a company in the Cayman Islands. Mumbai's High Court says Capital Gains Tax is payable and should have been collected by Vodafone.

Earlier this year the European Commission launched two iPhone-related investigations into Apple's business practices. One looked at Apple’s insistence that repairs were only available in the country where an iPhone was bought, while the other concerned Apple's decision that developers could only use Apple’s own programming tools and approved languages when writing iPhone apps.

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.