New rules from UK telecoms regulator Ofcom will protect customers when they use their mobile phone on a foreign network. In addition, customers will be alerted if they are inadvertently roaming, perhaps because they're near an international border.

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:

There's one tech story that’s dominated the week’s news: Microsoft buying Skype. "Why?" and "Really?" appear to be the top questions; we'll do our best to answer them and provide some more insight in Wednesday's podcast.

Mark Bridge writes:

The Apple App Store runs in a similar way to many high-street shops. It decides what it'll sell. It decides what it won't sell. It has special offers. It has free gifts. It promotes certain products above others.

Peter Fedynsky of voanews.com writes:

The United States is introducing a new public alert system that will deliver warnings to mobile phones in the event of emergency. The system is first being rolled out in New York and Washington and will operate nationwide by April 2012.

James Rosewell writes:

Tonight's BBC Apprentice was about building a Mobile Application. Two teams of supposedly bright entrepreneurial talent were tasked with creating a Mobile App in 2 days. The App with the highest number of downloads 24 hours after being launched would win this stage of the competition. App stores didn't include Apple, but did include Nokia, Android and Blackberry.

Mark Bridge writes:

It's time for another round-up of the week's mobile industry news.

Two of the recurring themes we've encountered in the last few months are legal action and partnerships. This week's legal story involves a conflict between Huawei and ZTE, while the partnership news sees RIM working with Microsoft. Yes, you may well raise your eyebrows. It seems Nokia-loving Microsoft is also a friend of the BlackBerry.

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.