Last year, brand valuation consultancy Brand Finance calculated that Wal-mart was the world's most-valuable brand. Google was in second place, while Vodafone - in 7th place - was the top-ranked telecoms brand.

This year's Brand Finance 'Global 500' report sees Google taking the top spot with its brand now worth over $44 billion. Microsoft was second… and Vodafone, in fifth place, remained the top telecoms brand.

Last night's Mobile News Awards ceremony at the London Hilton on Park Lane saw major wins for some of the industry's best known names.

Vodafone's Sure Signal femtocell won the Innovative Product award, the HTC Desire won Innovative Handset, Best Buy's 'Walk out working' picked up the Innovative Service award and 20:20 won Innovative Distributor.

In The Fonecast this week we discuss mobile termination rates, traffic management for mobile broadband, smart meters, protests, applications and crime-busting ringtones.

We also talk about the Japanese earthquake, which - although it's predominantly a human tragedy - also has economic consequences for the mobile industry.

Ofcom has announced a reduction in mobile termination rates that'll be effective from next month. Mobile termination rates are the wholesale charges paid by mobile operators when connecting calls to their rivals.

The last time it set MTRs was 2007, when it agreed a series of charges that dropped annually until 2011.

BSkyB, BT, O2, TalkTalk, Three, Virgin Media and Vodafone have all committed to providing better and more easily comparable information to consumers about traffic management. It's a voluntary agreement that's been arranged by the Broadband Stakeholder Group.

The participating companies account for around 90% of all fixed-line broadband customers and 60% of all mobile broadband customers in the UK.