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.

Mark Bridge writes:

There are bad weeks... and there are BAD weeks. Blackberry had one of the latter. It all started so well. The company announced a new flagship phablet – the Z30 – and said it would be launching its BBM instant messaging service for iOS and Android handsets at the weekend.

Mark Bridge writes:

iPhone, iPhone. Two of ‘em, one dearer than the other but neither especially cheap. One with a 64-bit look-at-me-I’m-fast processor, the other much like an iPhone 5 with a coloured rear panel.

Mark Bridge writes:

Following Wednesday’s ‘State of the Union’ speech by EC President Jose Manuel Barroso, EC Vice-President Neelie Kroes has emphasised the urgency of changing the way telecoms companies operate across Europe.

Ms Kroes wants to cut red tape, end roaming charges, reduce call costs and introduce ‘net neutrality’ across Europe.

Mark Bridge writes:

So – we take a short break at the end of the August ‘silly season’ and one of the year’s biggest mobile-related rumours becomes fact. At least we’re back in time to report on the final stages of the Vodafone/Verizon deal. Yes, it looks as though Big Red will be picking up something like $130 billion for its 45% stake in Verizon Communications… possibly within the next few hours. Just don’t mention the tax, okay?

Mark Bridge writes:

In this week’s podcast we talked about a recent European study into call costs that had been highlighted by European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes.

We agreed the headline was shocking - but also said there were potentially many other tariff factors that weren’t being compared.

Telefonica sets up its own mobile advertising business, Mozilla puts an interim CEO in place and Nokia suspends sales of its flagship Windows 8.1 RT tablet: all topics for discussion in this week's podcast.

We're also talking about the future growth of Orange Money, EE's online activity, mobile broadband growth and the Loch Ness monster being spotted on Apple iPhones.

There's a diverse collection of mobile-related news in this week's 30-minute podcast.

We start with the new Twitter music service before moving on to discuss quarterly results, patent licensing, wireless charging, advertising and mobile payments... before ending with a curious report about app-controlled underwear.

This week's podcast starts with news that HP is unhappy - but we resist the temptation to include any saucy puns that might spice up the story.

The programme also covers Nokia's new Facebook-friendly phone, plans for white space technology in the UK, shopping on smartphones, Samsung's Chinese suppliers, the demand for mobile data and a new app from Orange that seems to threaten its mobile business.

This week we're talking about the UK's first 4G mobile phone tariffs, Ofcom's consultation about contract pricing and O2's response to its recent network outage.

We're also looking at quarterly results from Google and Nokia, Apple's iPad design, Microsoft's tablet pricing and texting cows.

This week's mobile industry news podcast from The Fonecast takes a gloomy look at HP's job losses, the end of the Cisco Cius tablet and the growth in Android malware - before cheering up with encouraging news from Orange, Yahoo! and Sidecar.

You can listen to the programme on our website audio player, via iTunes, by using our RSS feed or by downloading the MP3.