The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation into Vodafone, Telefónica and Everything Everywhere’s plans to create a UK-based mobile commerce joint venture.

The scheme, which was announced in June last year and has been nicknamed ‘Project Oscar, will now be investigated to see whether it would reduce effective competition in the European Economic Area. A decision will be made by the end of August.

Everything Everywhere is planning to close a combination of 31 Orange and T-Mobile stores in the UK, replacing them with shops that sell both mobile networks. As a result, 28 retail management roles are expected to be lost, although Everything Everywhere says it’ll be looking to redeploy people where possible.

In addition, a head office reorganisation will see a further 67 retail roles cut. However, the company also says 50 new office-based roles will be created.

This week’s podcast from The Fonecast covers all the top stories from the past seven days. We’re talking about RIM’s plans for its BlackBerry business, the EC’s plans for ‘roaming’ tariffs, T-Mobile’s price-rise plans and much more.

You can listen to the programme on our website audio player, via iTunes, by using our RSS feed or by downloading the MP3.

T-Mobile UK has announced that it’ll be increasing some of its prices from 9th May 2012.

Customers on most ‘pay monthly’ contracts will have their basic monthly charge increased by 3.7%.

Facebook says it’s currently working with AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, T-Mobile USA, Verizon, Vodafone, KDDI and Softbank to introduce operator billing.

This would enable Facebook users to buy digital goods via a mobile web application and pay by charging the purchase to their mobile phone account.