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:

New Apple products! New Android smart watches!

You’d be forgiven for not having noticed either of those news stories last week. Apple did indeed announce a new iPhone – but it was simply a new iPhone 5c with just 8MB of memory.

Noam Green of Flash Networks writes:

The introduction and deployment of LTE networks offers real promise for both subscribers and operators worldwide. It brings the potential for revolutionary improvements in quality of experience for mobile broadband, and even faster downloads and video streaming.

Mark Bridge writes:

As one show closes, so another show opens.

It’s now more than a week since we bid a sad farewell to Mobile World Congress 2014 – I imagine hotel rooms for 2nd to 5th March 2015 are already being booked – but there’s now CeBIT in Germany to look forward to. Prime Minister David Cameron kicked things off last night with a speech that talked about UK-German partnerships, more funding for research around the ‘Internet of Things’ and the development of 5G technology.

In this presentation, which was originally given as part of the ‘Multimedia Content Delivery onto Mobile Platforms’ session at Mobile World Congress 2014, Professor Andrew Nix from the University of Bristol explains many of the often-forgotten truths about WiFi service.

If you’re an IT manager, working in a mobile phone shop, looking at tech product design or simply want to get the most from your mobile phone, Professor Nix has plenty of practical advice in this 20-minute video clip.

The GSMA reported that 85,000 visitors attended Mobile World Congress this year, breaking all previous records for the show.

Andrew Skinner, Relationship Director of the Technology, Media & Telecoms team at Barclays, reflects on his time in Barcelona and some of the key themes to come out of this year’s show.

We start this week's podcast with Tesco's plans for a Hudl-branded smartphone. Next comes some potentially good news about the 'patent wars' affecting the mobile industry - although there's certainly no sign of a ceasefire.

Later we discuss an announcement from Facebook about its mobile advertising scheme, an unfortunate mistake for O2's Travel service, a new 20 megapixel camera-phone and an automotive investment by Nokia.

This week's programme begins with some of the biggest news stories that came out of Mobile World Congress.

Iain, James and Mark then move on to the other headlines from the past few days, including Boeing's secret agent smartphone, Apple's plans for mobile in-car entertainment, a new structure for Telefonica and new technology for mobile payments.

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return with their first mobile industry podcast of 2014.

This week they're looking at new Samsung, Sony and ZTE products from CES, they're talking about Android embedded in cars, they're catching up with the latest news from BlackBerry, they're discussing cheque payments by smartphone, they're revealing complaint data from Ofcom and they're investigating quite a few other stories as well.

It looks like BlackBerry is safe for the moment... but not with the takeover many had expected.

Meanwhile Google launches the Nexus 5, Nortel's patents are sent into battle, EE promises ever-faster 4G, the FAA allows electronic devices to be used throughout flights and we celebrate a record quarter for smartphone shipments.

We listen to the European Commission's eCall announcement by Neelie Kroes. It marks the start of the EC's planned introduction of in-car emergency call technology by 2015.