The volume of mobile voice and data traffic in the average Western European country will grow by 67 times - from 186 Terabytes per day to 12,540 TB daily - between 2010 and 2020, according to a new report from the UMTS Forum.

Worldwide total traffic on mobile networks is expected to increase 33-fold to an annual total of 127 Exabytes in 2020.

UK network giffgaff introduced data charges to its standard tariff at the beginning of April. It had previously offered limited data access as a free trial to its customers.

In a blog post, the network admits it's recently had problems with the service - traced to technical issues with its parent network, O2 - and is consequently removing its data charges until the issues are fixed.

New figures from Juniper Research suggest that 63% of data traffic generated by smartphones, tablets and feature phones will be carried by fixed networks - via WiFi and Femtocells - by 2015.

This annual amount of mobile data traffic 'offloaded' from mobile networks is expected to reach nearly 9000 petabytes by 2015, the equivalent of 11 billion movie downloads.

Mark Bridge writes:

We head into the weekend with the News of the World admitting voicemail hacking was more widespread than previously thought. Mobile networks had already made it much harder to access voicemail remotely… and now the NotW is saying sorry and preparing to pay compensation.

Talkmobile, the UK virtual mobile network from The Carphone Warehouse, has launched a series of 'pay monthly' tariffs that include what's being described as "unlimited mobile internet data".

Prices start from £12 per month for a two-year minimum term contract with a free phone plus 200 inclusive minutes and 200 inclusive texts per month.