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:

Call me naive or call me cynical - in either case you won’t be the first - but I was a little surprised to see a strong manufacturer presence at Droidcon UK last week. I’d assumed that manufacturers might be inclined to pick a popular operating system and then just start making devices.

Mark Bridge writes:

Much of Bletchley Park’s history involves code-breaking and intercepting radio messages so - when Over The Air 2011 brought hundreds of mobile developers to the site - it seemed appropriate to explore the subject of mobile phone security.

In particular, there were a couple of sessions on the agenda that caught my eye. Detective Sergeant Andy Williams of the National Mobile Phone Crime Unit started by talking about stolen phones... and asking if mobile applications could help with this problem.

Mark Bridge writes:

I’m glad I don't work for Facebook. One minute everyone loves you, the next minute they hate you. Multiply that by the 500 million people now using Facebook every day and I’d be pretty insecure.

Mark Bridge writes:

Much like the mainstream media, this week's news summary begins with 'voicemail hacking'. In our podcast feature on Friday we spoke to industry crime-fighter Jack Wraith about the security of voice messages. He explained how remote voicemail access was now much more secure than it was ten years ago, which is good news for everyone (except dodgy investigators).

Mark Bridge writes:

In this week's podcast feature we're joined by Jack Wraith, chief executive for the Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum and chairman of the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum.

He talks to Iain Graham about the current state of voicemail security and the improvements to mobile security we've seen in the last few years.

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.