New rules from UK telecoms regulator Ofcom will protect customers when they use their mobile phone on a foreign network. In addition, customers will be alerted if they are inadvertently roaming, perhaps because they're near an international border.

A new forecast from research specialists Canalys shows the smartphone market is set to recover next year. Worldwide shipments declined by 12% last year but that decline is expected to slow to 5% this year.

Vodafone Group plc and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited have agreed to combine their UK telecommunication businesses, respectively Vodafone UK and Three UK. The merger will create a large new network operator to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE.

UK mobile payment service Paym will close on 7th March 2023. The service, which allowed users to make and receive payments using their mobile phone numbers, was launched in 2014.

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.

Mark Bridge writes:

We started last week with a change of plan from BlackBerry. No, it’s not selling itself to Fairfax Financial. Instead it’s aiming to raise $1 billion from investors. Cynics might suggest there wasn’t enough interest for a takeover.

Mark Bridge writes:

Talk about a difference. In preliminary results last week, HTC announced its first-ever quarterly loss while Samsung revealed record quarterly profits.

Curiously, many of the week’s other news stories also had a companion headline to provide a contrast.

Mark Bridge writes:

iPhone, iPhone. Two of ‘em, one dearer than the other but neither especially cheap. One with a 64-bit look-at-me-I’m-fast processor, the other much like an iPhone 5 with a coloured rear panel.

Mark Bridge writes:

The past few days have seen the arrival of two familiar seasons. Not only has the sun peeked its head from behind the clouds in an approximation of Spring but the mobile industry has been releasing its quarterly results.

Mark Bridge writes:

I didn’t study economics at college, which is probably one of the reasons I have a very simple perspective on quarterly results. As far as I’m concerned, they fall into one of three categories: much as expected, better than expected or worse than expected. Anyway, it’s the time of year when some of the biggest names in the mobile telecoms industry publish their financial results – so here we go.

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.