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.

James Rosewell writes:

Microsoft have been talking about Mango, the upcoming upgrade to Windows Phone 7 incorporating their battery-friendly flavour of multi-tasking and 499 other new features. They've also welcomed Fujitsu, Acer and ZTE to the Windows Phone fold. However there was no significant news from Nokia and Microsoft. No timeframe for handsets, nothing in fact. Both companies are being tight lipped about the partnership at the moment.

Mark Bridge writes:

Don't get me wrong. I'm excited about the idea of mobile payments. But I think the Quick Tap launch and all this talk of a 'mobile wallet' is a little overhyped. And here are the three main reasons why.

Mark Bridge writes:

Mobile payments. Mobile payments. Mobile payments. That's what everyone seems to be talking about. They were on the agenda last week and they're back again.

Mark Bridge writes:

Orange Quick Tap is official. You can buy a Samsung Tocco Lite-a-like, add the details of a participating card provider and Bob's your uncle.

Except I've already got a phone. And a credit card that's not from Barclays. So what can I do?

Mark Bridge writes:

The phenomenon of 'apocalypse sex' is often seen in movies, comedy shows and advertisements. The end of the world's just around the corner so… hey… what the heck?

I reckon it shares the same emotional basis as being 'demob happy' or having that 'end of term feeling' at school.

And that feeling seems to be in plentiful supply at Nokia HQ in Espoo.

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.

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.

The new Microsoft Band, the Samsung Galaxy A smartphones and the Huawei Honor 6 are all discussed in this week's podcast.

We also look at some of the mobile industry's other big stories, including Amazon UK's mobile phone deals, the Lenovo purchase of Motorola Mobility, LG's quarterly results and the anticipated increase in WiFi hotspots.

This week's podcast begins with the latest news from Phones 4u, where hundreds of jobs have been saved but there are a large number of redundancies as well.

Iain, James and Mark then talk about new products from Amazon, BlackBerry and Panasonic, mobile payment innovation from Indonesia and the UK, the acquisition of IoT specialist Neul and Apple's updated privacy policy.

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.