Fixed

New UK foreign investment law to impact telecoms, digital and data transactions

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Summary By the end of 2021, many corporate transactions in the communications, data infrastructure, artificial intelligence, satellite and space technologies sectors (and some others) will be subject to mandatory notification to, and national security review by, the UK government. Implementation timetable The National Security and Investment Act 2021 (“Act“) became part of UK law on …

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UK Gigabit fibre access regulation and funding

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Gigabit fibre to the home in the UK: Ofcom finalises regulatory framework and Government announces funding package for the “last 20%” On 18 March 2021, Ofcom published the outcome of its Wholesale Fixed Telecoms Market Review (“WFTMR“). On 19 March 2021 the UK Government’s Department for Culture Media and Sport (“DCMS“) announced £5 billion of …

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UK proposes statutory backing for Huawei 5G ban

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On 24 November 2020, the UK Government started the legislative process for a new Telecoms (Security) law which will, when passed into law, provide statutory backing for their already announced policy objective to exclude Huawei (and potentially other ‘high risk vendors’) from the UK’s 5G (and other) networks on the grounds on national security. This …

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Europe proposes lower voice termination rates

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On 25 August 2020, the European Commission proposed a regulation to set Europe-wide (lower) voice termination rates of 0.2 euro cents per minute for mobile voice and 0.07 euro cents per minute for fixed voice. The introduction of these new termination rate ceilings are subject to: a three year ‘glide path’ (to 1 Jan 2024) …

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UK confirms it will mostly implement new EU telecoms law (despite Brexit)

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On 22 July 2020, the UK government confirmed that it would largely implement the European Electronic Communications Code – the EU’s updated, harmonised regulatory framework for telecoms – into UK law by 21 December 2020. This confirms the approach from that first announced in July 2019, providing welcome certainty, despite a change in the leader …

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How will Ofcom’s role change in 2020?

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On 30 April 2020 Ofcom published its work plan for 2020/21, which flags two new material upcoming changes in its role for 2020: becoming the regulator for on-line harms (aka dealing with ‘fake news’ on social media) enforcing the UK’s policy to limit/exclude Chinese network vendors from UK 5G network deployment. Ofcom explains: “…the UK …

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Ofcom consults on revision of (half of) UK’s general authorisation conditions

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As anticipated, Ofcom yesterday started a consultation on its plans to update the UK’s Conditions of General Entitlement i.e. the obligations placed on all telecoms operators in the UK that rely on the UK’s general authorisation.

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UK wayleave reform to create a £1bn windfall for telecoms operators

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As discussed previously, perhaps one of the most important pieces of legislation for the telecoms sector proposed in the recent Queen’s speech is reform of the Electronic Communications Code, which deals with the telecoms industry’s access to land in the UK.

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