UK communications regulator Ofcom has decided that the annual mobile fees for mobile operators will treble, following a government direction that the fees should reflect ‘full market value’.

Ofcom has concluded that mobile operators should pay a combined annual total of £199.6m per year for the 900MHz and 1800MHz spectrum bands.

Ofcom has changed the licences of the UK’s ‘big four’ mobile network operators to improve mobile coverage.

EE, O2, Three and Vodafone have all agreed to accept this change.

A new report by the GSMA forecasts that half of the world’s population will be using mobile devices to access the internet by 2020.

Almost all of the additional mobile internet users expected during the next six years will come from developing markets, according to the report.

A new research report from Berg Insight says the market for mobile machine-to-machine (M2M) communications has begun to move from the 2G to 3G and 4G technologies.

Although cellular M2M devices on HSPA and LTE networks are expected to account for under 20% of the global market by the end of 2014, they’re forecast to dominate with more than 50% by 2018. Meanwhile, shipments of 3G/4G M2M devices are expected to overtake 2G M2M in 2017.

Ofcom has scaled back its plans to increase the licence fees paid by UK mobile networks for the 900MHz and 1800MHz spectrum bands initially used for 2G and 3G services.

It previously proposed increasing overall charges paid by the ‘big four’ mobile network operators from £39.7 million for the 1800MHz spectrum up to £170.4 million.

Mark Bridge writes:

Last week, French iOS security researcher pod2g revealed a potential security risk with the Apple iPhone’s handling of SMS text messages.

All text messages can be sent with an optional ‘reply to’ telephone number that’s different from the sender’s number. The majority of text messages don’t use this feature - and many phones either ignore the extra data or display both numbers - but Apple’s iOS seems to handle it in a potentially risky way.

Kerry Butters writes:

When deciding on which mobile device is the right one for your business, there are a few things to take into consideration. Firstly, are you buying a handset for yourself or for others who work in the business, or are you considering running a BYOD (bring your own device) scheme.

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s been a busy day for Everything Everywhere. Alongside its 4G news came rumours that the company was planning a rebrand, with ‘Orange’ and ‘T-Mobile’ eventually being dropped in favour of the ‘Everything Everywhere’ branding.

There’s now an official statement from Everything Everywhere:

Mark Bridge writes:

Our first week of Olympics-free news didn’t start well for many people. Google said it was planning to reduce the number of employees at its Motorola Mobility subsidiary by around a fifth, cutting approximately 4,000 employees in a bid to return its mobile phone business to profitability.

Mark Bridge writes:

So, that’s it. Today’s the day Adobe Flash Player - the preferred video player for many web sites - leaves the Google Play store.

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.