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 …
In a notice published today, 18 November 2020, Ofcom specified that the days for receipt of applications to participate in the UK 2021 5G spectrum auctions are between the times of 10:00 (UK time) on 3 December 2020 and 16:00 (UK time) on 4 December 2020. More detail on the upcoming auctions can be found in this earlier post.
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) …
The US has updated its rules to prevent Huawei’s access to commercially available chips that use US technology in a move that could sound the death knell for the Chinese telecoms firm. Under new restrictions, announced on Monday 17 August by the US Commerce Department, companies globally will need to obtain a licence to sell …
On 3 August 2020, Ofcom confirmed that the UK’s 5G auction would go ahead, with bidding starting in January 2021. The auction is set to increase the spectrum available for mobile in the UK by 18%. This should lead to better and faster mobile data services. 80MHz of spectrum will be auctioned in the (recently …
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 …
Read moreUK confirms it will mostly implement new EU telecoms law (despite Brexit)
UK excludes Huawei from 5G and broadband networks: the UK Government has announced a U-turn on Huawei’s involvement in 5G networks, following a meeting of the National Security Council, that will delay 5G rollout by two to three years and increase costs by up to £2 billion.
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 …
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.
Read moreOfcom consults on revision of (half of) UK’s general authorisation conditions
The UK Government today published its first draft of the Digital Economy Bill. As expected, it contains provisions addressing (text taken from Government explanatory fact sheet):