Three UK is reporting a six-fold increase in the amount of smartphone data on its network during New Year’s Eve 2011.

In a blog post, Nigel Field - Three’s Director of Devices - says the company recorded 14 Terabytes of data on 31st December 2010. On the same day in 2011, usage had increased to 80TB.

ABI Research says mobile video usage is expected to grow dramatically during the next five years - but it won’t become the ‘new voice’.

Video telephony, video sharing and video messaging services over mobile networks were used by less than 47 million consumers at the end of last year. However, usage is expected to grow eight-fold to reach 390 million users in 2016.

Mark Bridge writes:

By now you already know the basics. More and more people have smartphones - and they’re becoming an essential companion. They’re taking over from digital cameras, they’re taking over from portable gaming consoles, they’re taking over from music players… and now they’re taking over from Christmas cards. Yes, Christmas cards.

From this week, the UK’s Financial Services Authority requires mobile phone conversations and text messages to be recorded by certain regulated financial organisations.

In addition, these firms will need to take ‘reasonable steps’ to make sure employees don’t conduct any regulated business on private mobiles.

The latest company to join the mobile ‘personal broadcasting’ scene is Spreaker. It’s aiming to do for audio what Twitter does for text and YouTube does for video - and it’s just released its iPhone app.

An Android app is expected shortly.