This week's podcast begins with Ofcom's plans to cut the wholesale cost of inter-network mobile phone calls. But what benefit will consumers see?

Iain, James and Mark then move on to discuss luxury smartphones, a new handset on the high street, mobile broadband for aircraft passengers, government monitoring, the growth of smartphones - and 4G-equipped donkeys.

Mark Bridge writes:

Apple kicked off its 2014 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) last week with an announcement about the forthcoming iOS 8 operating system for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. There was some catching up, some innovation and a couple of new services designed to work with home automation and health/fitness devices. What’s Tim Cook’s plan? We’ll have to wait and see.

Ericsson has published the latest version of its Mobility Report, which shows that the total number of mobile subscriptions is expected to exceed the world’s population next year.

The first quarter of 2014 saw mobile subscriptions grow by 7% year-on-year, with 120 million net additions.

At the end of last year there were over 230 million LTE-related mobile subscriptions worldwide, according to ABI Research. That’s 3.3% of all mobile subscribers.

This figure is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 36.6% between 2014 and 2019, resulting in more than 2 billion 4G subscriptions by the end of the forecast period.

Consumers in Europe will soon be affected by a lack of competition if mobile networks aren’t given access to the fibre backhaul owned by incumbent operators.

That’s the warning given in a new report commissioned by Vodafone from Analysys Mason.