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.

We start this week's podcast with news that EE now has the largest 4G customer base in Europe, with 5.6 million UK connections.

There's also talk about a new DIY product for the Internet of Things, the disappearance of Nokia branded smartphones, quarterly results for Apple, increasing M2M connections and a growing market for smartwatches.

The past few days have been a good time for launches. Twitter has floated on the stock exchange, Kazam has revealed its smartphone range and EE has created a tariff with a million gigabytes of mobile data.

On the other side of the coin, Acer's CEO is quitting, Vodafone UK has missed its 3G coverage target and hackers can take control of your handset's camera to ascertain PIN codes.

In today's podcast: Samsung's profit, UK mobile ad spending and Vertu's smartphone range are all increasing.

Meanwhile HTC's profit and the proportion of children with mobile phones are both going down. Discover the background to these news stories - and plenty more - in our regular weekly broadcast.

Today's podcast starts with a gentle warning to app developers from the Office of Fair Trading.

We then move on to Amazon's new tablets, HTC's sale of its Beats Electronics stake, Twitter's emergency alerts, UK government plans to improve mobile broadband on trains, customer complaints and the growth in adult content for mobile devices.

We start this week's show with news about the European Commission's plans to end mobile roaming charges completely from next year.

We're also talking about the future facing Twitter and Dell, Vodafone's security challenges in Germany, app development, wireless charging, mobile payments and Nokia's Android-based smartphones.