It’s probably a central tenet of regulatory theory: The more symbolic and pointless a regulatory activity is, the more interested the public seem to be. In the media and communications sector, this means that broadcast content adjudications by Ofcom are the talk of the town. But more meaningful regulatory actions by Ofcom, such as the [...]
Folks, what we have seen over the past 4 years with Openreach is the formation of a very comfortable and in some important respects unaccountable monopoly. With Ofcom’s focus on equivalence of access for retail telecommunications competitors, it looks as if other legitimate concerns such as lack of infrastructure investment, dodgy business practices and gold-plating [...]
A recent report from the Brookings Institution (details below*) makes for very interesting reading for those interested in the UK telecommunications sector. The authors basically use data concerning European broadband development and network investment to argue that Ofcom made a serious policy error when it functionally separated BT / Openreach in late 2005.
Here’s a nugget:
[Prior [...]
I am a big critic of Ofcom’s Pay TV investigation. It looks like a solution in search of a problem and it has dragged on far too long. The real kicker: There’s probably not much that can come of it that will ever benefit television viewers in the UK. It looks like a forthcoming litigation-fest [...]
The law firm Charles Russell has an excellent new blog.
Yesterday they discussed the possibility of regulatory holidays (for the telecommunications sector) sneaking in the back door via the political route. They indicate that such a result might destroy Ofcom’s reputation and the international best practice of equivalence of access principles.
Well I disagree. I’m a huge [...]
