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.

The European Commission has approved the proposed creation of a UK mobile commerce joint venture between Vodafone, Telefónica and Everything Everywhere.

It had been investigating the planned m-commerce partnership - nicknamed ‘Project Oscar’ - since April as there had been concerns about the potential size and power of the scheme.

Everything Everywhere has confirmed a much-rumoured agreement to transfer a 2×15MHz slice of its 1800MHz spectrum to Three UK.

Ofcom has recently given the go-ahead for this frequency band to be used for 4G services.

Payment processing business MasterCard has announced a five-year partnership that’ll see it working on mobile and digital payment solutions for Everything Everywhere’s UK customers.

The two companies are already planning a co-branded pre-paid solution that’ll allow customers to make payments using Near Field Communications technology via mobile devices.

Mark Bridge writes:

It was a week of dramatic contrasts in the mobile phone industry. We started with Everything Everywhere’s news that 4G service was coming to the UK this year – possibly with a new brand that’ll work alongside Orange and T-Mobile. Meanwhile Three UK seems to have its own plans that involve acquiring some excess 4G spectrum from Everything Everywhere. There was much muttering from Vodafone and O2, although whether this’ll manifest itself as legal action remains to be seen.