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:

August is traditionally known as the ‘silly season’… but last week’s mobile industry news was all very serious. Apple started with a move designed to reassure customers about unsafe iPhone chargers by arranging a discounted exchange scheme – and it ended the week with a patent victory in the USA.

Mark Bridge writes:

Don't sell the steak – sell the sizzle!  That's the mantra of many salespeople. It's all about emphasising the benefits of a product rather than its features. You don't tell people about the 13 megapixel camera when they ask about the new LG smartphone, you tell them it'll capture the first steps of their precious young nephew in pin-sharp accuracy. Or something like that.

David Heled of Cellebrite writes:

Smartphones are now by far and away the communication, payment and information device of choice for consumers and enterprises. Sales are set to overtake those of traditional feature phones this year for the first time. However, the increasing complexity of the devices’ technology means that there’s a lot more that can go wrong, and make it harder for mobile retailers to identify potential problems – and it’s costing them millions per every year.

Mark Bridge writes:

Google’s big announcement last week involved the company introducing Android v4.3 (as expected), launching a new Nexus 7 tablet (as expected) and also revealing a ‘Chromecast’ HDMI adaptor that’ll stream from most portable devices. That was more of a surprise.

Mark Bridge writes:

With the school term over and August just a few days away, UK telecom regulator Ofcom has published a new guide to help travellers avoid ‘bill shock’ after using their mobile phones, tablets and laptops abroad.

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.

HTML5 is often described as the shape of things to come; sometimes as the future of the web and sometimes as the nemesis of native mobile applications.

But exactly what is 'HTML 5' - and what does it mean to the mobile industry?

We start this week's podcast with financial results from EE - along with new phones from LG and HTC.

There's also a merger between mobile browser companies, mobile security from Vodafone, free WiFi from Barclays bank, a preview of Ubuntu for smartphones... and much more.

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.

James Rosewell introduces the 51Degrees.mobi Mobile Trends 2011 white paper, explaining how Apple's share of mobile web browsing is apparently falling. We also discuss several other mobile web trends in the document, which covers Europe, the USA and India.