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.

Rachel McCormack writes:

Mobile point of sale transactions (mPOS) are growing in popularity as mobile use takes over from desktop computers. The description of ‘mobile’ point of sale transactions denotes the ability of a payment to be taken via smartphone or tablet rather than a traditional card reader. There are many different ways to do this; mobile chip & PIN, mobile swipe & sign and NFC payments. All of these methods vary in popularity and security conceptions and many are difficult to understand. In this article we will explore each and give you the chance to understand the technology and issues surrounding the various methods.

Mark Bridge writes:

The future of mobile technology is inextricably linked with video… or is it the other way round?

Some of the answers will be discussed next week at a seminar being run by the Digital TV Group (DTG), which is the industry association for digital television in the UK.

Mark Bridge writes:

We started last week with a change of plan from BlackBerry. No, it’s not selling itself to Fairfax Financial. Instead it’s aiming to raise $1 billion from investors. Cynics might suggest there wasn’t enough interest for a takeover.

Mark Bridge writes:

The Rockstar Consortium. That name sounds as though it could be promising more than it can deliver, doesn’t it?  Well, it’s not. It’s the group of mobile companies that picked up Nortel’s portfolio of several thousand tech patents for $4.5 billion. And now, its members – including Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Ericsson and Sony – have set some of those patents on their biggest competitors.

Mark Bridge writes:

No prizes for guessing which two mobile tech stories grabbed most of the headlines last week. Tuesday morning saw Nokia’s much-rumoured tablet and phablet launches, with a Windows RT device and two 6-inch smartphones joining the company’s product portfolio.

The new Apple iPad tablets, Google's latest Nexus devices, Android Lollipop, wearable tech from will.i.am and the world's slimmest smartphone all feature in this week's podcast.

We're also talking about free mobile data for Christmas, 4.5G technology being rolled out in the UK, 5G technology being tested in South Korea, the end of an era for webOS and video messages that self-destruct.

In this interview Mark Bridge talks to Jijesh Devan of QuickPlay Media about the opportunities and challenges of bringing video services to smartphones and other internet-connected devices.

Their conversation took place on the QuickPlay stand inside the App Planet area of Mobile World Congress in February.

Dr Kevin Curran, Reader in Computer Science at the University of Ulster, joined us during Mobile World Congress to offer his well-informed opinion about trends in mobile technology.

We talked about a wide range of topics, including battery life, disposable tablets, wearables, m-health, 4G fragmentation, connected furniture, M2M security, the rise of video and the IEEE.

This week's podcast starts with the world's slimmest smartphone (at least for the moment) before introducing a new smartphone company and even more new products from Samsung.

We're also talking about the battle of Instagram vs Vine, the sale of O2 Ireland, mobile retail web usage, the new CEO of BT and a new report about an unexpected health threat to mobile phone users.

Hans Eriksson, Executive Chairman of mobile video streaming service Bambuser, is in London for a 24-hour non-stop mobile video broadcast. Mark Bridge talks to him as he prepares to test his company's technology - and test the power of social networking, too.