UK Parliament launches inquiry into spectrum
The UK system of government and regulation can sometimes be confusing, with the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee of the House of Commons this …
Mobile
Microsoft buys Skype: comparison with eBay deal logic
The big story yesterday was the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft for $8.5 billion. It was only 6 years ago that eBay bought Skype for …
Ofcom has wide jurisdiction and discretion to accept and resolve disputes
The CAT today rejected BT’s arguments that Ofcom has a narrow jurisdiction to accept and resolve disputes referred to it by Communications Providers pursuant to …
RIM and Google compete to acquire Nortel’s patents
Readers with long memories will remember Nortel’s glory days of the 1990s, when it expanded rapidly by supplying equipment on the back of significant investment in competitive telecoms …
Commission maintains its softly, softly approach on net neutrality (whilst carrying big stick)
Net neutrality. A topic that stirs strong emotion and strident commentary that sometimes bears little resemblance to the underlying issues. The European Commission today published …
Europe to review data retention rules
Readers will recall from the curious case of Mr Spitz that European telecoms operators already retain very large amounts of information about their customers. In an …
European Commission tries to marshal stakeholders for World Radiocommunications Conference 2012
The European Commission published on 6 April a Communication on policy objectives for the International Telecommunications Union World Radiocommunications Conference 2012 (WRC 12). WRC 12 is the next quadrennial …
Spectrum, broadband, customer switching and online piracy Ofcom’s telecoms priorities for 2011/12
I hope all readers noticed the date for Friday’s blog post (taken down on 2 April) and are not planning on bidding in the teleportation …
Premium rate regulation extended across the value chain from 1 September 2011
News item topics are like buses – nothing happens for weeks or months, then everything happens at once. Following yesterday’s publication of the Phonepayplus annual …
Phonepayplus publishes market trends report and 2011/12 plan
Phonepayplus, the UK’s premium rate services regulator, has today published: a Report on Emerging Trends in the Premium Rate Services Market; and its plan and budget for the …