LG’s pre-MWC announcements continue with news of a new mass-market 4G smartphone range.

The LG Optimus F Series will make its debut at Mobile World Congress next week, starting with the Optimus F5 and Optimus F7. Both are 4G LTE Android-powered devices “designed to bring a premium user experience and the speed of 4G LTE to a mass audience”.

We start this week's podcast with financial results from EE - along with new phones from LG and HTC.

There's also a merger between mobile browser companies, mobile security from Vodafone, free WiFi from Barclays bank, a preview of Ubuntu for smartphones... and much more.

LG has announced a new smartphone with its largest display yet.

The LG Optimus G Pro has a 5.5-inch HD display and will debut in South Korea this week. It’ll also be shown at Mobile World Congress.

Mark Bridge writes:

As the final days before this year’s Mobile World Congress approach, we discover there are two types of scheduled news announcements from the wireless telecoms industry.

There are the announcements delayed until MWC begins because the company wants to be part of the buzz at Barcelona. And there are the announcements made in the fortnight beforehand because they don’t want their story to get lost.

LG Electronics says it’s sold over 15 million smartphones in its Optimus L Series since launching them at Mobile World Congress last year, with one device being sold somewhere in the world every second during the past two months.

There’s now an upgraded range being prepared for an official launch at MWC 2013: the Optimus L Series^II will comprise a number of devices with higher specifications than the original handsets and distinctive LED Lighting on the ‘home’ button.