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.

VOA News writes:

New market research has many technology experts thinking the era of the personal computer (PC) is coming to an end as consumers worldwide begin to embrace tablet computers and smartphones.

Hazel Allsopp of Purple WiFi writes:

Retail and hospitality businesses have long been aware of the need to offer free WiFi access to their customers. The use of smart phones is becoming increasingly widespread, and people expect to get online wherever they are, whatever they’re doing.

The latest large brand to recognise this is Intercontinental Hotels Group, who announced last month that they would be offering free access to 71 million loyalty scheme members’ worldwide. The decision was made in response to a survey in which 43% of guests said they wouldn’t stay in a hotel if it didn’t offer free WiFi.

Mark Bridge writes:

Let’s start with a slightly belated birthday wish to the hand-held mobile phone, which made its first public appearance on 3rd April 1973. At that point we’d had carphones for a while… but this was the first time anyone had heard the phrase “Sorry, I’ve got to go, the battery’s running out” spoken in public. Or something like that.

Mobile apps are a hot topic in the Aerospace and Defence industry right now.

Jeff Pike, Head of Marketing and Global Markets Development for IFS in the Aerospace and Defence industry, outlines five key elements which are key to a successful military mobile app.

Rick Pantaleo of voanews.com writes:

Forty years ago today the cell phone era began on the streets of New York City. The historic first cell phone call was made by Martin Cooper, director of systems operations for the communications division of the Motorola company, to his main rival at Bell Labs.

The new Microsoft Band, the Samsung Galaxy A smartphones and the Huawei Honor 6 are all discussed in this week's podcast.

We also look at some of the mobile industry's other big stories, including Amazon UK's mobile phone deals, the Lenovo purchase of Motorola Mobility, LG's quarterly results and the anticipated increase in WiFi hotspots.

This week's podcast begins with the latest news from Phones 4u, where hundreds of jobs have been saved but there are a large number of redundancies as well.

Iain, James and Mark then talk about new products from Amazon, BlackBerry and Panasonic, mobile payment innovation from Indonesia and the UK, the acquisition of IoT specialist Neul and Apple's updated privacy policy.

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge start this week's podcast by looking back at the launch of the iPhone 6, the Apple Watch and the Apple Pay service.

They then move on to discuss the troubles at Phones 4u, a UK smartphone launch from O2, another smartphone launch that's been put on hold, Microsoft's gaming plans - and more.

In this podcast Mark Bridge talks to Florent Stroppa from mobile value-added service specialist OnMobile about the state of the mobile industry in 2014.

They discuss the dominance of Apple and Samsung, network consolidation, the new Amazon Fire smartphone, smart wearables and much more.

This week's podcast covers the launch of the first Amazon smartphone and the introduction of Google Glass to the UK.

We also talk about new WiFi-powered voice services from EE and Three, plans to reduce mobile 'black spots', BlackBerry's app partnership, smartphone theft, 4G innovation... and rechargeable trousers.