Telefónica UK and Vodafone UK are planning to pool the basic parts of their network infrastructure, creating a single ‘national grid’ that runs independent spectrum for Vodafone and O2.

The companies - which already have a network partnership known as Cornerstone - say it’ll improve 2G and 3G coverage as well as providing faster roll-out for 4G mobile services. They anticipate delivering a nationwide 4G service up to two years before Ofcom’s anticipated regulatory requirement of 98% population coverage by 2017.

We're taking a break from the current mobile industry news headlines this Diamond Jubilee week. In fact, we're celebrating our own anniversary because it's six years since we first started recording The Fonecast.

Listen to this week's podcast and we'll take you back to 2006, a year in which 'mobile music' meant ringtones, the Nokia N95 redefined 'smart' and we reported rumours of a new Apple 'iPod phone' being prepared by Foxconn.

ABI Research has analysed tablet sales for the first quarter of 2012, calculating that 18.2 million devices were shipped worldwide. That’s an 185% gain year-on-year, although the total figure was down 33% on the previous quarter.

According to the Q1 2012 calculations, Apple saw 11.8 million iPad shipments - keeping it well ahead of the competition - while Samsung’s 1.1 million shipments returned it to second place, replacing the Amazon Kindle Fire.

Mark Bridge writes:

Here in the UK, we have a double Bank Holiday weekend to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. That means two days away from work for many of us (and also two days of unseasonably bad weather, according to tradition).

In fact, the three of us at The Fonecast are celebrating our own anniversary this month. It’s been six years since we started podcasting about the mobile phone industry. We’ll be revisiting some of those early programmes - and the biggest mobile news headlines from 2006 - in this week’s podcast on Wednesday.

Last month a jury decided that Google hadn’t infringed two of Oracle’s patents when creating its Android operating system - and a judge has now ruled that the case doesn’t involve a breach of copyright either.

The case dates back to 2010 when Oracle claimed a significant part of the Android mobile operating system was “derivative of Oracle’s copyrighted Java API packages”. Google had responded by saying the Java programming language was free to use, which meant it could use the Java-related APIs in Android.