This week's podcast begins with Ofcom's plans to cut the wholesale cost of inter-network mobile phone calls. But what benefit will consumers see?

Iain, James and Mark then move on to discuss luxury smartphones, a new handset on the high street, mobile broadband for aircraft passengers, government monitoring, the growth of smartphones - and 4G-equipped donkeys.

Mark Bridge writes:

Apple kicked off its 2014 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) last week with an announcement about the forthcoming iOS 8 operating system for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. There was some catching up, some innovation and a couple of new services designed to work with home automation and health/fitness devices. What’s Tim Cook’s plan? We’ll have to wait and see.

Ofcom has decided that the ‘Freephone’ range of telephone numbers prefixed with 0500 will be withdrawn in three years’ time on 3rd June 2017.

The range was introduced in 1982 and is still being used, although new numbers haven’t been allocated since 1998.

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has published proposals that would see the wholesale cost of connecting mobile phone calls dropping to less than 0.5p per minute within three years.

Termination rates have fallen by 20p per minute within the past 20 years and are currently about 0.8p per minute.

Vodafone UK has introduced a ‘fixed price promise’ that says the basic monthly charge of a mobile phone contract won’t increase during the minimum term.

It follows a clarification of Ofcom’s rules earlier this year. As a result, mobile network operators can no longer introduce ‘unexpected’ price increases during a contract.