Mark Bridge writes:

We’re back from Mobile World Congress – and what a show it was. Located at a new site that saw more visitors than ever before, the show had everything… except any particularly obvious theme from hardware manufacturers. Last year was the year of the quad-core smartphone, this year there was plenty of incremental innovation but nothing truly startling.

The final stage of Ofcom’s 4G UK mobile spectrum auction has been completed, with two network operators choosing to pay more for a specific part of their chosen spectrum band.

Ofcom announced the winners of the main 800MHz and 2.6GHz auction just over a week ago.

Although BT has just won a sizeable chunk of 2.6GHz spectrum in Ofcom’s UK mobile auction, the company isn’t planning to launch a national mobile phone network.

Instead, it’s planning to use the bandwidth in conjunction with its existing WiFi network to provide customers with mobile broadband services.

Telecoms regulator Ofcom has announced the winners of the UK’s 4G mobile spectrum auction, which has finally been completed after more than 50 rounds of bidding. It means that faster mobile broadband services will soon be offered to more people by more companies.

The UK’s major mobile networks - Everything Everywhere Ltd (EE), Hutchison 3G UK Ltd (Three UK), Telefónica UK Ltd (O2) and Vodafone Ltd - have all won radio spectrum.

Barclays is to offer free WiFi in over 1,500 of its UK bank branches, enabling customers and visitors to connect to the internet.

The service was initially trialled in three Barclays branches and has now been installed in over 800 banks. WiFi in the remaining Barclays branches will go live within the next few weeks.