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:

In recent months we’ve run some surveys on our home page. The results make interesting reading (although we’ll happily admit they’re not likely to be representative of UK mobile users in general).

First, we asked “Which Operating System will be on your next handset?”

Mark Bridge writes:

Santa’s bringing tablets this Christmas – and I’m not talking about the plink-plink-fizz of Alka Seltzer. These are tablet computers… and they’re going to be everywhere.

It all started with the Apple iPad; a device so widely anticipated, the TV advertisements didn’t even need to say what it did.

The Definition of Mobile event promises a distinctly different perspective for those interested in the future of mobile, summarising the key facts big business needs to grasp to execute a successful mobile strategy.

We'll be bringing you a summary of the key points during mid-September.

The best and brightest mobile-related blogging from the last seven days is now online at MSearchGroove.com. Peggy Anne Salz, this week's Carnival host, looks at a wide range of topics – including an in-depth post from Ajit Jaokar refuting recent suggestions that the web is dead.

Mark Bridge writes:

Last week the Wall Street Journal published a feature that explained how techies in New York wanted the city’s 212 area code as part of their mobile phone numbers. This may seem strange from a UK perspective until you realise that American mobile phone numbers don’t have dedicated mobile ‘dialling codes’. Instead, they’re all prefixed with a local area code and cost the same to call as those landline numbers they mimic.

We begin this week's podcast with updates on two topics we discussed last week: the potential purchase of a UK mobile network by BT - and the crowd-funded Jolla Tablet.

After that we talk about the GSMA's reaction to national roaming, the potential death of the landline, a new threat to Google, management changes and advertising for 4G data.

We begin this week's podcast with a discussion about the Heartbleed bug, the effect it's having on the mobile industry and the wider issues for all internet users.

We're also talking about the future of BlackBerry, UK 4G coverage, new CEOs, Bluetooth connectivity, privacy concerns and the next generation of mobile processors.

Dr Kevin Curran, Reader in Computer Science at the University of Ulster, joined us during Mobile World Congress to offer his well-informed opinion about trends in mobile technology.

We talked about a wide range of topics, including battery life, disposable tablets, wearables, m-health, 4G fragmentation, connected furniture, M2M security, the rise of video and the IEEE.

The Smart UK project is an annual government-supported competition looking for the UK's Most Innovative Mobile Company.

A few days ago, all 20 companies on the competition shortlist gave a short presentation to the Smart UK panel of judges. Afterwards, Mark Bridge spoke to some of the entrants to discover exactly what they had to offer - and how they planned to disrupt the mobile industry.

We start this week's podcast with Ofcom's announcement that it's clarifying the rules for fixed-term mobile phone contracts.

There's also a new curved smartphone from LG, accusations about a mobile security company, information about mobile phone thefts, a report into the UK's communications infrastructure and some quarterly results figures.