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:

Having just returned from a week's holiday in a part of the country where mobile coverage was surprisingly sparse, it struck me how much mobile phones were linked to the recent English riots and looting.

Mark Bridge writes:

A mobile phone case is often seen simply as a revenue opportunity for retailers. But, as you might expect, there's a lot more to this type of accessory than first meets the eye.

I started this week's podcast feature by asking Rhona Cashman from protective case manufacturer OtterBox why mobile phone dealers should be discerning about the cases they sell.

Mark Bridge writes:

Last month, News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch said the News of the World had accounted for just 1% of his global business. It's a figure that put the overall size of News Corp into perspective.

This week, some analysis of Microsoft's financial results seems to suggest Windows Phone is only generating a similarly small percentage for its parent.

Mark Bridge writes:

David Drummond, Google's Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, has just written a blog post that describes an 'anti-competitive strategy' against Android by companies including Apple, Microsoft and Oracle. Entitled "When patents attack Android", it points out that more than 550,000 Android devices are now activated every day... and says this has resulted in "a hostile, organized campaign against Android".

Mark Bridge writes:

I don't like marketing spin. You know, the kind of thing where the small print contradicts the headlines or where an embarrassing u-turn becomes a benefit. Given my chosen profession, I find it tends to stand out.

And so I turn my attention to T-Mobile's new 'You Fix' tariff. Sounds rather like T-Mobile's 2005 'U-Fix' tariff, but that may be coincidence. You pay a fixed monthly fee and - if you use all of your inclusive calls - you can add an additional allowance during the month by paying a bit more. Rather like buying a top-up on a prepay phone.

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.

We start this week's podcast by talking about Yahoo and Tumblr before moving on to discuss Google's recent developer conference.

There are product announcements from BlackBerry, HP and the former MeeGo developers at Jolla... and there's some interesting mobile app news as well.

Today's edition of The Fonecast takes a look at the top mobile-related news stories from the past week, including the new Google Keep app, Apple's mapping acquisition and Facebook's VoIP service.

We also cover the BlackBerry World application store, a new UK 4G survey from eBay, in-car connectivity and the recent Yahoo! purchase of Summly.

It's a good week for Yahoo! as it appoints Marissa Mayer - previously Google employee number 20 - to the role of CEO. However, things aren't as cheery at Research In Motion, which has been ordered to pay over $147 million in a patent case.

Meanwhile O2 UK is recovering from a network problem that left around a third of its customers disconnected for almost a day.

This week's mobile industry news podcast from The Fonecast takes a gloomy look at HP's job losses, the end of the Cisco Cius tablet and the growth in Android malware - before cheering up with encouraging news from Orange, Yahoo! and Sidecar.

You can listen to the programme on our website audio player, via iTunes, by using our RSS feed or by downloading the MP3.