Telecoms regulation
I get a regular selection of recent corporate finance deal activity summaries in my email. Last week, I got one from Regent. Their view was that with the exception of a dip in August, valuation multiples in the European TMT sector have steadily edged upwards over the year, with: price / earning at 16 (as…
On 7 January the UK’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills published a ‘call for evidence’ relating to principles of economic regulation. As those who have read my earlier post will know, in industries where network effects (or various economies such as scale) are present (such as telecoms) it is unlikely that an unregulated market will deliver the best…
Sadly I’ve not been in Las Vegas at CES, but remained at my desk in London reading the various updates. As the dust starts to settle it seems that tablets are the story of this year’s show. Not having had the opportunity to personally play with any shiny new toys, I am not in a…
Ofcom permits 2G spectrum refarming Ofcom yesterday varied the spectrum licences of the UK’s three 2G spectrum licensees (EverythingEverywhere (JV between Orange and T-Mobile), Vodafone and O2) to permit them to use those frequencies for 3G services (mobile broadband) as well as 2G services (such as voice and SMS). For more detail see the Olswang update (thanks to Telecommentator). Uncertainty about digital…
There has been a lot of discussion this week of BT’s wholesale content connect product, so I thought it would be helpful to unpack the story and explore exactly what BT’s product is (and is not), and what the views are of those objecting. BT’s View Let’s start with BT’s side of the story. BT…
I’m very excited to have had my first re-tweet, so today’s post develops the thought further. The retweet was of an economist article which, in contrast to the emerging consensus that traditional telephone calls are dead quotes a recent Ofcom international research report as evidence that whilst fixed line volumes are declining across the world,…
I write today’s blog from sunny Switzerland. The news seems rather slow and I can’t bear to write a top ten lists of things that either happened in 2010 or to watch in 2011, so today’s post will try to explain what network effects (or externalities) are and why even in a minimalist government intervention…
Re-reading yesterday’s post, I hope it wasn’t too close to a law firm client update – that is not being the point of this blog. I thought I’d try to redress the balance today, and as I drove from London to Exmoor for Christmas, with the snow by the side of the road steadily increasing,…
Some years ago I was reading one of those very thought provoking articles in the end of year bumper edition of the Economist. The gist of the article was that you could compare societies along different dimensions and depending on the dimension you chose could get very different groupings to those we are familiar with. …
Trying to write an interesting blog about the intersection of law, policy and regulation with telecoms and technology is somewhat challenging. Three posts in and I seem to be relying on references to popular culture to pep things up – this time 1970s disco. The use of stored value in the form of money is the cornerstone of…
With my first post done, I thought it best to try and provide a little substantive content. Two years ago, I spent some time interviewing various CEOs, strategy and regulatory directors in various international communications companies to get their thoughts on the big issues that were coming up. With the end of the year approaching…
First post. It feels slightly intimidating, so I thought that describing the thought process that has brought me here and what I want to achieve would be a good start. I turned 40 this year and it is the mark of a generational shift that I have ended up as a senior technology and telecoms lawyer without…
