Water-resistant smartphones attracted plenty of interest last year at Mobile World Congress... and they were back this year.

UK-based P2i, which already provides a splashproof liquid repellent nano-coating for some Motorola and Alcatel mobile devices, has been showing off its forthcoming ‘Dunkable’ technology. This increases the level of protection by protecting smartphones that are submerged in water.

TCL Communication, the company behind Alcatel One Touch mobile phones, has announced the Android-powered One Touch Idol Ultra.

It’s just 6.45mm deep at its narrowest point yet offers a 4.7-inch HD AMOLED display, an 8 megapixel camera and a 1.2GHz dual-core processor.

James Rosewell and Mark Bridge report for The Fonecast from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

As day 2 begins, there’s a review of Monday’s news headlines, a conversation about user experience with Jerome Nadel of Option and a look at water protection for mobile phones from P2i.

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s the week before Christmas, which can only mean one thing for the mobile industry: plenty of research news. Yes, when there isn’t anything new to talk about, a survey or forecast is the perfect way to fill the silence.

Mind you, things haven’t been entirely quiet when it comes to mobile products and services.

Mark Bridge writes:

Last week I pointed out that picking the best bits from other people’s tech reviews didn’t look good when the full version was pretty uncomplimentary. And today I’ve discovered another mobile network guilty of tripping itself up with words.

Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication is offering mobile networks an unrivalled opportunity to dramatically increase their connection figures. At the moment, over 100 million M2M-enabled devices - from vending machines to smoke alarms - are providing information automatically, with mobile networks carrying the majority of this traffic

Jürgen Hase, Vice President of the M2M Competence Center at Deutsche Telekom and Chairman of the M2M Alliance, offers his M2M predictions for 2013.

Mark Bridge writes:

We started last week with a 20th birthday party for the SMS text message, which was first used as an alternative Christmas card by Neil Papworth in 1992. Since then, mobile data has been transformed from the familiar dit-dit-dit dah-dah dit-dit-dit of Nokia phones to non-stop internet connectivity on smart devices.

Mark Bridge writes:

There are some things I don’t want to accept. Events that have rocked my perception of the world. Dave Lee Travis being arrested. The death of Amy Winehouse. Visiting a pork pie factory. I now have a new one on my list: Vodafone’s blog post today about the Smart Tab II.

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.

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.