Last week, Orange UK closed its online shop, online customer service and online account management, moving them all to the EE web site.

You might say the future is starting to look less bright for the Orange brand in the UK.

Tom Alexander, who co-founded Virgin Mobile in 1999 and was CEO at Everything Everywhere until 2011, has returned to the mobile industry as non-executive chairman of Viacloud UK.

He’ll be working with a recently-appointed management team that includes CEO Emanuele Angelidis, Chief Commercial Officer Tim Stone, Chief Technology Officer Jon Kandiah and Chief Financial Officer Richard Schaefer.

Quarterly results from EE show that 318,000 customers (2.3% of EE’s post-paid customer base) have signed up for the network’s 4G service in the first five months.

It says this means it’s on track to have more than one million 4G customers by the end of 2013.

EE says it’s going to double the speed and the capacity of its 4G network in the UK. As a result, maximum data speeds are expected to exceed 80Mbps with an average of more than 20Mbps.

In addition, EE is dedicating more of its 1800MHz spectrum to 4G service.

A promotional deal with EE has seen 40 black cabs in London and 10 in Birmingham turned into mobile WiFi hotspots. Each taxi has been given its own 4G data connection via a MiFi wireless router.

The promotional 4GEE campaign will run for three months.

Mark Windle, head of marketing at OpenCloud, predicts that this year’s reduction in the number of traditional telecoms operators in some countries will provide an opportunity for other operators to innovate and capture market share in 2016.

He says next year will be a year of rapid change for telecoms… whether it’s MVNO disruption, competitive tariff pricing or simply defence from the ‘dark art’ of hacking.

Mark Bridge writes:

The most memorable moments in life often go unrecorded. You don't have your camera in your hands. Your finger is still hovering over the 'pause' button on your audio recorder. Or you were simply too busy experiencing whatever was happening. It's all about the one that got away.

That's where Kapture can help.

Mark Bridge writes:

James Rosewell shows me a colourful roll of paper that's the width of an iPhone but well over three metres long. When I look closer, I can see it's a printed copy of the Wall Street Journal's mobile website. That's a lot of scrolling to do... and a pretty unfriendly user experience for anyone reading the news online. Why does it work so badly?

The Toshiba Portege G900 smartphone is reviewed, we interview new Extreme Mobile MD John McFarnon, Ian White from Mobile News talks about customer service, we play with Flexis Extreme and we discuss the week’s industry news headlines.

10 things you need to know about the Apple iPhone, an exclusive interview with Unique Distribution's new CEO, industry news and gossip, Ian White's outspoken opinion and a review of the 'phoneAlarm' utility program.

What's happening at Truphone? We talk to the company’s CEO, James Tagg. Ian White tells us about "poaching", and the team review the latest news and views from around the industry, plus review the Sony Ericsson W910i and Spybot Search & Destroy.

The team are joined by Faisal Sheikh of Fone Doctors and Ian White of Mobile News to discuss T-Mobile's rumoured exit from the dealer channel, 3G for all, as well as the rest of the weeks news. They review the O2 Cocoon and debate "Is the mobile internet finally ready for consumers?", and Theme-DIY to customise Nokia series 60s.

The team review the HTC Touch an iPhone contender, debate the question "Are customers getting the mobile services they want?", bring you the latest news and find time to review "Kojak - Detective Puzzles".