This morning’s announcement by Ofcom that it was allowing Everything Everywhere - the company behind Orange and T-Mobile in the UK - to use its existing spectrum for 4G has been met by statements of disappointment from both Vodafone and O2.

Vodafone’s official statement said “We are frankly shocked that Ofcom has reached this decision. The regulator has shown a careless disregard for the best interests of consumers, businesses and the wider economy through its refusal to properly regard the competitive distortion created by allowing one operator to run services before the ground has been laid for a fully competitive 4G market.”

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s been a busy day for Everything Everywhere. Alongside its 4G news came rumours that the company was planning a rebrand, with ‘Orange’ and ‘T-Mobile’ eventually being dropped in favour of the ‘Everything Everywhere’ branding.

There’s now an official statement from Everything Everywhere:

Telecoms regulator Ofcom has approved Everything Everywhere’s plans to use its existing 1800MHz spectrum for delivering 4G services. Everything Everywhere applied to Ofcom in November last year with a proposal to change its current licences.

Following a consultation, Ofcom has concluded that these changes will deliver significant benefits to consumers without distorting competition or giving Everything Everywhere anything more than a brief advantage.

Although 4G LTE phones haven’t yet been given a UK launch, they’re selling well abroad.

LG Electronics has just passed global sales of five million LTE smartphones, having sold a million in July alone. The company’s first LTE smartphone - the Revolution - was released in the USA last May, with the worldwide range now having expanded into double figures.

We start this week's edition of The Fonecast with a new product from RIM: the mobile-enabled BlackBerry PlayBook. Next comes Vodafone's move to Tech City and Google moving its mobile wallet into the cloud.

You'll also find the latest batch of quarterly results, some mobile data research and a story about sheep sending SMS text messages.