EE, formerly Everything Everywhere, has announced tariff details for its new 4G mobile phone service in the UK. It’s launching 4G in the UK on Tuesday 30th October in Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow and parts of Southampton. Coverage will expand to Belfast, Derby, Hull, Nottingham and Newcastle by Christmas.

The new service will be called 4GEE and promises average speeds of 8-12Mbps.

Ofcom, the UK government and the major networks have all agreed a timetable for 4G to be launched across the UK.

We're talking about those plans in this week's podcast - and taking a look at all the other top mobile industry stories as well, from US mergers and leaky tablets to free WiFi and forthcoming quarterly results.

There’s major consolidation in the US mobile industry today with news that Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA - the nation’s fourth-largest mobile operator - is planning to merge with MetroPCS. A proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile last year was unsuccessful.

The combined company, which will retain the T-Mobile name, is expected to have approximately 42.5 million subscribers. However, it will still have fewer customers than any of the top three: Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint Nextel.

Following an agreement that the UK’s new 4G mobile spectrum would be available for use by next summer, Everything Everywhere has confirmed a launch date for its own 4G service and its EE brand.

EE will launch 4G in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Sheffield on the 30th October 2012. A third of the UK population is expected to be covered by the end of the year.

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.