Mobile payment business Boku has acquired carrier billing specialist mopay.

The deal makes Boku the largest standalone provider of carrier billing-based mobile payment services in the world, with a combined customer base that includes Electronic Arts, Facebook, Gameloft, Sony, Spotify and Valve.

Online payment provider mopay has announced a carrier billing partnership with Telefónica, giving it direct access to the BlueVia billing platform.

It’ll improve the customer experience when consumers use mopay to buy digital goods and services that are charged to their phone bill.

Online payment specialist mopay has introduced a new service that lets customers charge web site purchases to their mobile phone account with a single click.

The new process is currently being offered via Telefonica and Vodafone in Germany.

Customers who’ve bought goods and services by adding the charge to their mobile phone bill tend to make further mobile purchases, according to a new study by payment provider mopay.

The company analysed information from 300 of its clients, accounting for more than four million mobile transactions in over 80 countries during the past three years.

Mobile payment solution provider mopay has announced a global partnership with Fon, which describes itself as the world's largest WiFi network.

Fon is enabling mopay mobile payments, making it easier for smartphone and tablet users to pay for access to a Fon hotspot. Customers will be able to get WiFi access simply by providing their mobile phone number and adding the Fon cost to their mobile account.

Mark Bridge writes:

Unlimited mobile data. Once upon a time, it seemed that everyone offered it. Not that mobile data was ever really unlimited – there tended to be a ‘fair usage’ clause tucked away in the terms and conditions – but the word ‘unlimited’ was used a lot. The fact that it was always accompanied by an asterisk didn’t seem to trouble trading standards departments.

Mark Bridge writes:

Last month I was struck by the way video streaming service Bambuser was being used by citizen journalists.

Now comes news of a different kind of photo-journalism. Instead of shooting behind-the-scenes images of a general election, prisoner Michael Long has been using his mobile to record from behind bars.

Mark Bridge writes:

As sure as eggs, there’ll be an iPhone 5. It’ll be announced on 6th June 2011 if you want my guess. And the latest rumours are suggesting it’ll have ‘radial menus’.

This week’s edition of The Fonecast includes a report from Apps World, which took place in London on 30th November and 1st December. As the name suggests, the event was all about mobile applications, their development, the technology that’s used and the ways that apps are marketed.

Mark Bridge writes:

In this week’s podcast we talked about the ChevronWP7 ‘unlocking’ solution that allowed the installation of Windows Phone 7 applications without the need to use Microsoft’s Marketplace application store. Unlike previous Windows Mobile handsets, new WP7 devices can only add applications that are offered via the Microsoft Marketplace.

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.