The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has cleared the potential £12.5 billion sale of EE to BT. A provisional decision was announced in October last year.

It means that the BT/EE merger is now likely to be completed on 29th January.

EE is reported to be discontinuing its Orange and T-Mobile tariffs for new connections and upgrades, according to Mobile News.

Although existing customers can continue with their Orange and T-Mobile deals, they’ll now need to move to an EE tariff if they want to upgrade.

Last year AT&T, T‑Mobile and Verizon rolled out their Isis mobile payment service across the USA.

However, recent international news headlines have used the acronym ISIS to refer to a group of fighters in Syria and Iraq.

Ofcom has published the volume of complaints made against mobile phone network operators, fixed-line phone providers, broadband companies and pay TV services between January and March 2014.

It’s the regulator’s thirteenth quarterly report of complaint data.

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.

Mark Bridge writes:

Welcome to TheFonecast.com for this week’s Carnival of the Mobilists, an itinerant online publication that contains the best mobile-focussed writing from the previous seven days.

The summer holidays may have reduced the quantity of online commentary for Carnival #234… but the quality remains unaffected.

In recent months there’s been a lot of talk about smart metering and the wider subject of machine-to-machine communications. With well over 100% penetration of mobile phones in the UK, the promise of machines exchanging information over the mobile network offers operators a new opportunity for growth.

To explain more about the technology and the potential, we invited Ross Catley to join us for this week’s edition of The Fonecast. Ross has worked in the utility & telecommunications industries and is now a consultant who advises on smart metering.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

James Rosewell writes:

Mobile network operators have responded en-masse to the success of Apple’s App Store. Apple should be very concerned. The Wholesale Application Community (WAC) has been formed as a corporate entity today with representation from AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, GSMA, KT Corporation, NTT DOCOMO, SK Telecom, Smart Communications, SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp., Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telekom Austria Group, Telenor, Verizon and Vodafone. Not many major Mobile Network Operators (MNO) are missing from the list.

Mark Bridge writes:

They were a proud race. Proud of their individuality. Proud of the simple yet high-tech environment they inhabited.

But their population wasn’t growing as quickly as it had. They weren’t dying out – far from it, because they were committed to the cause – but there weren’t as many bright new faces as there’d been before. And now the Others were moving closer.

Yes, they’d done their best to resist the Others. They’d tried moving into new areas; not running away but expanding. It seemed to work. A new generation – a new race, some said – had been born. Different, yet the same. So why did they still feel as though the Others were getting dangerously close?

That’s not the opening of the worst science-fiction novel of all time. It’s the place where some people think Apple finds itself at the moment.

Mark Bridge writes:

Mention 'anonymity' to anyone these days and it's pretty likely they'll start talking about Facebook. Maybe Google Street View, maybe RF chips in passports... but probably Facebook.

This 'over sharing' of personal information is a far cry from the situation a few years ago. Once, no-one on the internet really admitted who they were. That New Yorker cartoon - "Nobody knows you're a dog" - wasn't far off the truth. You couldn't tell a dungeonmaster from a librarian when they were online.

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.