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:

Mobile networks have changed, haven’t they?

Once they were all about delivering service. Coverage. Quality. Price. Now it’s much more about branding.

Everything Everywhere has announced it’s to become EE, an obvious abbreviation that’s been used in mobile industry briefings pretty much since the company was created two years ago. It joins the likes of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Hennes & Mauritz, British Home Stores, Independent Television and Marks & Spencer, although all of these took decades to transition into businesses that were just described by their initials.

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s a smartphone autumn, as prophesied a few weeks ago by the Carphone Warehouse and many others. The frenzy of big-name announcements led by Samsung at Berlin’s IFA has given way to stand-alone media presentations from Nokia, Motorola and Amazon.

Ted Landphair of voanews.com writes:

A lot of people gave up carrying much cash a long time ago, since they knew ‘plastic’ - a credit or debit card, or a store or public transit ‘smart card’ - would be accepted just about everywhere.

But to hear tech companies tell it, plastic cards will be museum pieces as well before long.

Mark Bridge writes:

It was a week of dramatic contrasts in the mobile phone industry. We started with Everything Everywhere’s news that 4G service was coming to the UK this year – possibly with a new brand that’ll work alongside Orange and T-Mobile. Meanwhile Three UK seems to have its own plans that involve acquiring some excess 4G spectrum from Everything Everywhere. There was much muttering from Vodafone and O2, although whether this’ll manifest itself as legal action remains to be seen.

Robin Kent writes:

With this week’s announcement that Everything Everywhere has been given the green light to launch the UK’s first 4G service, competing operators such as Vodafone and O2 are getting hot under the collar. With every day that goes by, these operators lose vital competitiveness as the market creeps away them towards Orange and T-Mobile. This is a real life ‘hare and tortoise’ scenario.

It's time for another news-packed mobile industry podcast from TheFonecast.com, starting with the European Parliament's latest ruling on in-car emergency communication.

After that we're talking about Microsoft's departure from the Nook eBook business, Three UK's 4G growth, Acer's tablet-sized phone, EE's rural coverage solution and some interesting new research about mobile-enabled customer service.

This week's podcast begins with a heated discussion about the UK government's consultation about improving mobile phone coverage.

Iain, James and Mark then move on to talk about over-the-top voice services, mobile internet usage, patent deals, the UK's next spectrum auction and wearable technology.

We begin this week's podcast with stories that go beyond the mobile industry, as HP plans to split into two companies and eBay prepares to separate itself from PayPal.

We're also talking about the Microsoft/Samsung legal case, a new Tesco tablet, BT's updated text relay service, a new way to avoid buying a stolen iPhone... and #Hairgate.

We start this week's podcast with news that thousands of Microsoft's ex-Nokia employees are losing their jobs.

Other topics for discussion include the new Apple and IBM partnership, Yahoo's acquisition of Flurry, regulating mobile games, improving rural mobile coverage, BT's new phone service and some management movements.

This week's mobile industry podcast begins with a quick look at the UK government's emergency legislation affecting fixed-line, mobile phone and broadband traffic.

We then talk about Microsoft's plans, a new virtual network from the Post Office, Samsung's renamed app store, budget 4G smartphones, a wearable phone for children and some misleading advertising.