Everything Everywhere, Telefonica UK and Vodafone UK have announced plans to create a standalone m-commerce joint venture. It'll combine the expertise from Orange, T-Mobile, O2 and Vodafone to speed the development and delivery of new mobile marketing and payment services.

Subject to regulatory clearance, the joint venture will provide a single point of contact for advertisers, marketing partners, retailers and banks. It's aiming to launch by the end of 2011.

O2 has publicised its response to Ofcom's proposals for auctioning the UK radio spectrum that'll be used for 4G LTE mobile services. Ofcom is proposing 'caps' to prevent any single bidder gaining a large amount of spectrum, along with 'floors' of minimum ownership.

In a statement, O2 said "we believe that the proposed spectrum floors are a state aid and are therefore illegal under EU law."

O2 has published the latest scores from its Eco rating scheme. Nokia's C6-01 and E7-00 topped the list, both scoring 4.1 out of 5, followed by the Samsung Galaxy Mini, the Sony Ericsson X8 and the Nokia C7-02 - all with 4 points.

The Eco ratings were launched in August last year as part of O2's Think Big sustainability programme.

Ofcom has published its first-ever research into the performance of mobile broadband across the UK.

It's looked at dongles and datacards rather than smartphones, discovering that 17% of UK households use mobile broadband. Around 7% of households use mobile broadband as their only internet access; a figure that's more than doubled since 2009.

Mobile payments hit the headlines again, with Orange and Barclays announcing 'Quick Tap' - and O2 also revealing its plans. In addition we discuss an OS update for Windows Phone, an even smaller SIM for iPhones and an appeal against mobile termination rates by almost everyone.