Figures from Ofcom’s latest European Broadband Scorecard show that the UK leads the EU’s five biggest economies when it comes to mobile broadband coverage, mobile broadband take-up, mobile broadband choice and general internet usage.

The comparison rated the UK against the other countries in the ‘EU5’: France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Mobile coverage mapping company RootMetrics has published its latest ‘RootScore’ report for the UK. Its data, which covers the second half of 2013, shows EE as the overall winner for reliability, speed, data, calls and text messages.

Three UK was in second place, followed by O2 and then Vodafone.

The number of contactless transactions via mobile handsets is forecast to exceed 9.9 billion globally by 2018, up from just over 3 billion this year. That’s according to a new report from Juniper Research.

Two factors are expected to boost this growth: HCE (Host Card Emulation) and an Apple iWallet

Noam Green of Flash Networks writes:

The introduction and deployment of LTE networks offers real promise for both subscribers and operators worldwide. It brings the potential for revolutionary improvements in quality of experience for mobile broadband, and even faster downloads and video streaming.

Even though the first mainstream 64-bit mobile processor was only launched towards the end of 2013, new figures from ABI Research show this type of chip will dominate the mobile market within the next five years.

Apple’s 64-bit A7 processor had been shipped in more than 36 million iPhones and iPads within the first three months of launch. It was followed by Intel, Marvell, MediaTek, Qualcomm and Nvidia all announcing their first 64-bit mobile processors at Mobile World Congress 2014.