The Boston Globe reports that the lab, which employs 52 people, will shutdown Oct. 30. The carrier will also continue to have labs in Silicon Valley, France and Japan, so we can’t really claim that France Telecom is deciding to stop innovating at all. That’s not the case for them, or most other carriers.

But you do have to wonder what these labs are doing? It was Apple that blew off the doors to the walled garden, and it’s Google that’s building a platform that will open up the internet to mobile users, and its entrepreneurs all over the world that are building apps and developing new services. HTC is building unique UIs and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) offers email to developing countries. It’s only every once in awhile, a carrier offers something really daring. For instance, AT&T (NYSE: T) reportedly did contribute to Apple’s visual voicemail service, and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) along with China Mobile, Softbank and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) are participating in what’s called the “Joint Innovation Lab,” which is a consortium of carriers with the goal of creating one single global platform for developers.

But in general, carriers move slower and are reluctant to experiment and bring new things to market—they are a cautious bunch. To be sure, it’s not because the labs don’t have smart people. For instance, the Orange Labs was headed originally by Rich Miner, who is better known for having developed the Android mobile operating system for Google, and now runs Google Ventures, also in Cambridge.

Miner and others easily show their frustration for how slow things can evolve in mobile. He’s famous for giving speeches about how difficult carriers can be to work with when you are an entrepreneur. That was the whole point of Android. The Boston Globe also reported about challenges within the lab to turn projects into reality. In fact, Harvard Business School published a specific case study on the topic in regards to Orange Labs.

Perhaps, carriers should shutdown the labs if they aren’t producing anything tangible? Or, in order to compete with the new crop of entrepreneurs, they’ll figure out how to move faster? Where do you see the innovation taking place today?