This week, the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) published its long-awaited consultations on the new draft Electronic Communications (Security Measures) Regulations and on the Code of Practice, both derived from their new powers under the Telecommunications (Security Act) 2021. For some time, with the help of what we consider Read more…
There is a lot for the UK telecommunications industry to be getting a move on with at the moment. The Government is consulting on the future of cyber-security in the sector, we have the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill, pending consultations on the secondary legislation and Code of Conduct Read more…
The National Security and Investment Act 2021 came into force today; and it is something anyone reading this in the UK will probably want to keep in mind. At a very broad level, it requires that the Government be informed of any change in control (using the thresholds from the Read more…
The Telecommunications Security Bill, which we previously highlighted as being draconian in the Henry VIII sense of the word, has passed largely unamended through both Houses of Parliament in the United Kingdom and will shortly get Royal Assent. The Bill (soon to be an Act), while containing some important operative Read more…
T-Mobile. TalkTalk. Multi-billion-dollar telecommunications companies that wish they had taken their data protection obligations more seriously. I know from experience that many organisations view regulations such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as burdensome red tape; a ‘box-ticking’ exercise that holds them back from doing business. But, Read more…
LRIC, FAC, SAC… What do they mean? You could literally write a doctoral thesis about the different models used in economic regulation. Academics in the field will likely shudder at the extent to which we boiled down the concepts in this piece, but that’s OK – the audience is not Read more…
As a practitioner in the field of regulatory economics, there is one (and only one) guarantee I will ever give when talking about modelling or forecasting – that I’m wrong. Granted, I sincerely hope that I am only ever slightly wrong, but there is no magic crystal ball. If there Read more…
I remember, way back in my early days in the tech sector, my mentor at the time saying “always stay a version behind“. Basically, his view was to let some other poor sods suffer the blood loss on the bleeding edge, and migrate in increments to stable versions. The same Read more…
Having now caught up with the recent publication of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill in the UK, we are wondering whether or not the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Office of Communications (Ofcom) are relocating to Hampton Court Palace. Hampton Court was the opulent seat of King Read more…
In reading the latest enforcement decision by the UK telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, you would be forgiven for thinking that the isolation caused by COVID-19 pandemic had caused some sort of fervour turning the market into an Orwellian dystopia. The decision relates to BT (or specifically BT’s subsidiary, EE, the largest Read more…