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:

Internet veteran Yahoo! provided last week’s biggest news, at least in terms of press coverage. It appointed Marissa Mayer as its President and Chief Executive Officer, having enticed her away from Google after 13 years.

Mark Bridge writes:

As summer approaches, so the media’s interest in mobile phone roaming increases. Once again, the maximum price of calls and texts when abroad in Europe is falling – but this year there’s something different on the horizon. The European parliament has just approved the EU’s plans to introduce a price cap for mobile data... and in a couple of years’ time we’ll be able to choose a completely separate network to help cut roaming costs.

Mark Bridge writes:

I’m reminded of a sketch from BBC TV’s ‘The Young Ones’ in 1982. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are waiting around.

“What’s new?”, asks Pestilence. “Microchip technology”, replies one of the others. “That’s quite a new thing, isn’t it?”

Quite new. It’s probably the best description for much of last week’s mobile industry news.

Mark Bridge writes:

Welcome to this week's news summary from The Fonecast. Sorry it's late but I have a reasonably good excuse. On Friday I was in central London to meet Hans Eriksson of Bambuser. He was about to stream his life online for 24 hours, relying on social networking to find him off-beat attractions. You'll find our conversation on TheFonecast.com – and the results are at bambuserchallenge.tumblr.com

Mark Bridge writes:

I've written previously about the changes happening to mobile application stores. Last week I was talking to Todd Levy about the family-friendly application store he's planning to launch. He explained how BloomWorlds would be curated to provide trusted reviews that weren't skewed by the app developers themselves.

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.