Ofcom: use comms regulation to drive innovation

The UK should have the best mobile and broadband connectivity in the world, and Ofcom will be playing its part to help unlock opportunities, encourage investment and open doors for innovation, according to the regulator’s group director for communications, Natalie Black.

Speaking at the Parliament & Internet Conference, organised by Ispa UK – the trade association for the organisations building and delivering the UK’s internet and telecoms services – and attended by MPs, broadband providers and other technology industry trade groups and advocates, Black noted that to assist the UK in achieving its ambitions in connectivity and hence deliver a platform for prosperity for general society and business, there were three key areas for the regulator to prioritise: broadband, mobile, and growth and spectrum in space-based communications.

As regards broadband, Black stressed that while the UK wasn’t one of the first movers in the widespread roll-out of fibre communications, over the past six years, the country has been catching up fast, now having the fastest full-fibre roll-out rate in Europe. She noted that in 2019, only 7% of British homes and offices could access ultrafast full-fibre broadband, but fast-forwarding to today, it’s now 75%.

Ofcom attributed this growth to co-operation and shared ambition among the UK’s broadband ecosystem. “Together, we have made that happen,” she said. “Ofcom opened the door, and the industry stepped up to the challenge.

“We were the first country in Europe to review, in its own right, the market covering the underground tunnels and telegraph poles that carry the fibre cables,” said Black. “That significantly improved access to [broadband market leader] Openreach’s ducts and poles for rivals, laying their own lines, hanging capital costs for some new entrants. And then, after years of traditional cost-based regulation and falling prices, we transformed our approach to incentivising investment.

“We gave Openreach a margin that gave its competitors margin,” she added. “And then they didn’t need much help finding their way through the open door. Competing networks started building like fury to try to gain a coveted first-mover advantage, and that in turn spurred the newly independent Openreach into action – and the rest, as they say, is history. Now that competition is driving innovation.”

Among the innovations noted by Black included new techniques for sliced fibre, new data linking standards and monitoring systems that potentially mean faults can be fixed before customers even see them. Moreover, she suggested that faster, more reliable connections could unlock benefits for consumers and businesses that they haven’t considered before. Full-fibre was key to gaining digital benefits. Black highlighted that the average UK household uses more than 500GB of broadband data every month, but among households with full-fibre, that average usage figure goes up 50% to more than 750Gb.

Black predicted that if all the planned broadband network deployments were realised, nearly 96% of UK properties could have full-fibre by 2027, but she stressed that Ofcom recognised long-term investments such as those made by the suppliers needed regulatory certainty and security. “We’ll continue to balance the scales by protecting customers during this period of transition and transformation,” she said. “This is not growth at all costs. Yes, people want faster networks, but they also want secure, affordable networks … This is a hard line in the sand for us, and we won’t accept growth leading to consumer harm.”

As regards mobile, Black said it was now a market where users were getting more for less, with Ofcom data showing that average prices were 5% lower in real terms in 2024 than in 2023, and 23% lower than in 2019, despite average data use trebling over this period. She pointed to a period of consumer policy interventions by Ofcom in that time and the support it gave to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in getting the merger of Vodafone and Three UK over the line as examples of how regulation was driving the market.

Black accepted there was more Ofcom needed to do to drive more gains, and she welcomed the government’s new infrastructure strategy – particularly the support for improved mobile connectivity on trains. “Ultimately, this requires a team effort, and we are absolutely committed at Ofcom to play our part,” she said.

The third priority regarding spectrum and space was seen as “the final frontier” of growth, and Black emphasised how supporting innovation was central to spectrum management. “We consciously look to allocate spectrum to new use cases, even when the commercial case is not yet there,” she said. “In recent years, Ofcom has run several [projects] to support mobile broadcast, and has supported industries such as maritime, aviation and emergency services ahead of Europe.

“The new private mobile network supports the digital transformation of sectors such as logistics and transport,” said Black. “We’re opening up new opportunities of high-capacity solutions for private networks by making available high-frequency [services]. We’ll continue to support the mobile industry in the deployment of advanced 5G and 6G. Just over the past few months, we’ve consulted on auctioning more spectrum for 4G and 5G mobile use, and announced we’re releasing more technology and improved for satellite licenses.”

She pointed out that the space industry has never seen growth like it is at present, with record numbers of satellites in low orbit above the UK changing how we can connect. Black stated this was one of its busiest areas of work, offering huge potential for innovation and growth across the economy. She added that over the course of the next few years, Ofcom would be “rapidly” expanding its spectrum allocations to space and satellite technology to increase the capacity for broadband services to both homes and businesses, particularly in remote areas, and that it would be developing spectrum licenses to support UK space launch capability.

“The last 30 years have seen connectivity change like never before, a lifetime’s progress in a generation that has come with its opportunities and its challenges,” said Black. “But there’s one thing that Ofcom takes away from our small – but, we hope, significant – role in this story: this is a team sport. Ultimately, it only works if industry, regulators and government come together.”