James Rosewell writes:

Yesterday I received the following text message from O2: “You’ve gone over your data allowance on your mobile. You need to cut down or get a bigger Bolt On to keep using the internet.” I thought this was strange as I’ve an unlimited data bolt on applied to my O2 UK contract so I decided to telephone O2 customer services to find out a little bit more. Here’s what happened.

The second quarter of this year was the best quarter ever for connections via the O2 UK 'partner channel', according to a statement from the company today. Blackberry connections through partners also reached a new quarterly high, as did connections via O2 Centre of Excellence partners and both of O2's strategic partners (Avenir and Azzurri).

Vodafone UK has launched the Vodafone Mobile Wi-Fi, a WiFi-enabled mobile broadband device that allows up to five people to simultaneously connect to the internet over the Vodafone network. Similar devices are already available from Three UK and The Carphone Warehouse.

Canadian-based research company IE Market Research Corp. has predicted the shape of the UK mobile industry in 2014. Its latest forecast anticipates a UK total of 84 million mobile subscriptions by the end of 2014. The merged Orange and T-Mobile customer base is expected to maintain its market share – calculated by IEMR to be 41% – while O2's subscriber market share will increase to 28% and Vodafone's share will drop fractionally to 23.3% in 2014.

The Digital Communications Knowledge Transfer Network has worked with UK Trade & Investment to create a competition for UK-based SMEs that have an innovative new mobile/wireless solution or product.

It's offering free exhibition places on the UKTI stand at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from 14th to 17th February 2011.