Telefónica UK and Vodafone UK have been given approval by the Office of Fair Trading and Ofcom to strengthen their existing network collaboration.

The two companies, which already work together on a UK mast-sharing project known as Cornerstone, now plan to combine the basic parts of their network infrastructure in a new company called CTI Ltd. This will own and manage the basic UK network infrastructure for both operators, although Vodafone and Telefónica (O2) will each continue to run their own independent networks.

A new report from Pyramid Research expects worldwide 4G LTE handset sales to reach 490.5 million in 2017, which is a compound annual growth rate of 73% over this year’s predicted figures.

It means LTE handsets will account for 20.7% of all handset sales in five years’ time.

Nokia reveals its first two Windows Phone 8 smartphones in this week's podcast, while Amazon announces a handful of new tablets.

And if that wasn't enough, there's an update from Everything Everywhere about its plans for 4G in the UK.

Everything Everywhere, which was given the go-ahead to use its existing 1800MHz spectrum for next-generation mobile services last month, has revealed its 4G plans for the UK. It’s also said it’ll be branding the new service - and the parent company - simply as ‘EE’.

Its EE 4G LTE network is being switched on for testing from today and is expected to be available to customers in 16 cities by Christmas 2012, covering a third of the population.

LG Electronics has formally announced the Optimus G, a new smartphone that’s the first 4G LTE device to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro 1.5GHz quad-core processor.

The LG Optimus G has a 4.7-inch WXGA display, a 13-megapixel camera and a 2,100mAh battery. It runs Android v4.0 and is equipped with NFC connectivity