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.

Information from mobile messaging specialists Airwide Solutions has revealed a 778.4% spike in Spanish text message traffic when the 2010 FIFA World Cup final ended on 11th July in South Africa.

In December 2009, Vodafone announced the creation of a mobile health unit that would work on mobile healthcare solutions. Last week Telefonica – O2's parent – launched a global e-health unit. And now Orange (which has had a dedicated healthcare division for four years) has announced Orange smartnumbers, a healthcare-specific service that's designed to give callers instant access to the best placed person or team available.

Mobile video services – including video telephony, video messaging, video sharing, video-on-demand and VoD downloads – will only generate around $121 million this year... but the market will be worth $2 billion worldwide in 2013, according to the latest report from ABI Research.

Chinese mobile phone manufacturer ZTE Corporation has launched its first Android-powered smartphone in the UK. It's co-branded by Three and is selling on 'pay as you go' tariffs for £99.99.

The ZTE Racer runs Android version 2.1 (Éclair) powered handset. It offers a 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen, 3.2 megapixel camera, 256MB of internal memory, Bluetooth and 7.2Mbps HSDPA connectivity.

Telefónica Europe, which bought mobile VoIP company JAJAH in December, has started rolling-out JAJAH-powered IP-based phone services across its O2 businesses in Europe.

The first is international calling service O2 Global Friends, which lets customers in Germany make international calls by dialling a dedicated local number. The call is then routed over the internet without the need for any software downloads or new hardware.

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.