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.

Here’s an edited transcript of our new monthly podcast, broadcast on 30th January 2015.

[Iain Graham]: Hello, it's Friday 30th January 2015. Welcome to this month's edition of The Fonecast. That’s right, you heard correctly: we’ve temporarily moved to a monthly format. If you’d like to join 51Degrees in sponsoring the podcast and returning us to weekly programmes, please get in touch via our website. Now, on with the show.

Mark Bridge writes:

What’s the secret of Apple’s success? That’s the question I was asked earlier this week by LBC radio during a report on Apple’s impressive iPhone sales and its record quarterly results.

So here are six reasons I think Apple is doing so well at the moment.

Mark Bridge writes:

If you listen to this week’s edition of The Fonecast - in which we predict what’ll be happening in the mobile telecoms industry during 2015 - you’ll hear James Rosewell say that BlackBerry’s handset business is doomed. Well, actually that’s not quite true.

Jon Carter of Deutsche Telekom has provided us with his ‘Connected Home’ predictions for 2015:

Connected home products and services rely on different communication standards, be it ZigBee, HomeMatic or Z-Wave. Only platforms which both handle established standards and are able to learn new protocols will hold their ground in the market in 2015. Customers don’t want to be limited in their product choices or care about compatibility issues. Integrating any device into a connected home setup needs to be smooth and simple.

Mark Windle of OpenCloud writes:

In 2014, operators focussed on rolling out LTE, but some have lost sight of the bigger picture. 2015 will see traditional telecoms services delivered over multiple access technologies, of which LTE is just a part. As next year fast approaches, our predictions take a step back and look at how the industry will adapt to the changing landscape.

We start this week's podcast by talking about the launch of BlackBerry 10 before moving on to discuss a 4G promise from Three UK.

The numerical theme continues with the Microsoft 4Afrika project, a handful of quarterly results and some investment news. Plus there’s worrying new malware and a curious Apple trademark application.

The last of the 2012 quarterly results are coming in, so it's time to compare figures from the biggest mobile handset manufacturers.

We're also looking at Twitter's new video app, discussing the forthcoming Firefox OS and preparing for the BlackBerry 10 launch later today.

We have a particularly packed programme this week as we catch up with all the biggest mobile industry news stories since Christmas.

There's opinion on everything from the UK 4G auction to the current CES show and from open-source smartphones to wireless phone charging in cars.

In this week's podcast we find BlackBerry facing a legal battle, SMS spammers suffering a big fine and EE boosting its 4G data tariffs.

We're also talking about a new iPhone camera accessory from musician will.i.am, rich cross-network communications in Spain, free WiFi in Yorkshire and the year's most-popular mobile search terms.

The UK's 4G spectrum auctions are given a start date, while RIM reveals the launch day for its BlackBerry 10 platform.

This week's podcast also covers the patent deal between Apple and HTC, the departure of Windows Live Messenger, the success of the Samsung Galaxy SIII and some mobile payment innovation.