James Rosewell writes:

The mobile techie community has known about mobile networks and indeed some handsets providing unique information about mobile devices and customers for a long time. Collin Mulliner, a graduate student at the Technische Universitat Berlin, has recently bought the issue to the attention of the public during a talk at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver.

The GSMA, which represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry, has launched its own spam reporting service for text messages. At the moment it's just a pilot scheme and is being operated by AT&T Mobility, Korea Telecom and SFR.

Online security company Cloudmark will operate the GSMA Spam Reporting Service. It'll analyse SMS traffic submitted by customers of participating networks via a short code of '7726', which spells SPAM on most mobile phones.

This week's edition of The Fonecast covers Wayfinder's closure by Vodafone, NFC phones for mobile payments, Digital Britain delays and an interview with Jim Bryan, co-founder and managing director of Retrieva Limited, whose company produces a tracking and anti-theft dog collar that combines GPS, GSM and RFID technologies.

As usual, you can listen to this week's programme on our website...

A new piece of European legislation about 'roaming' charges has come into effect today, 1st March 2010. It was part of the same announcement that capped the cost of sending text messages within Europe last summer.

This new law is designed to protect consumers from 'bill shocks' by allowing them to choose a cut-off point once their mobile bill reaches a certain amount.

Mark Bridge writes:

Today I've been using my mobile phone at home. For many people that’s not an unusual thing to do – but it is for me because, around here, coverage indoors isn’t particularly good. Downstairs it’s previously been non-existent. But this morning everything changed.