Sundar Pichai, senior vice president in charge of Google’s products, has told an audience at Mobile World Congress that the search and advertising business is planning to launch a US-based virtual mobile network.

Rumours have previously suggested Google has been talking to Spring and T-Mobile about a possible partnership.

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.

Google has acquired the technology from mobile wallet company Softcard, which it will be combining with its Google Wallet service in the USA.

It means that customers buying an Android phone from AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless will have the Google Wallet NFC payment app pre-installed.

Here’s an edited transcript of our new monthly podcast, broadcast on 30th January 2015.

[Iain Graham]: Hello, it's Friday 30th January 2015. Welcome to this month's edition of The Fonecast. That’s right, you heard correctly: we’ve temporarily moved to a monthly format. If you’d like to join 51Degrees in sponsoring the podcast and returning us to weekly programmes, please get in touch via our website. Now, on with the show.

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.