Back from the dead…

Well, hello at last!  I must say it feels very good to be blogging again.  I won’t bore you today with all the ‘editorial’ reasons behind the extended silence: some will no doubt emerge over time.  For now, let’s just say that a planned summer vacation was unexpectedly extended into a seasonal sabbatical.  But the break did at least give me the chance to review the themes I’ve been addressing over the past or so.  

As I said in an earlier blog, one of my main concerns has been ‘the development of competition in the communications sector’, particularly the regulatory approach to fostering broadband access in the UK – both universality and the emergence of next generation, ‘superfast’ services. Underlying both issues is the worry that regulatory policies pay inadequate attention to the business models needed to encourage private sector investment in infrastructure projects with very long pay-back periods.  Over the past year this concern of mine with investment signals has to a large extent been played out through the blog’s close attention to the so-called ‘net neutrality’ debate, specifically its potential constraints on traffic management and the blocking commercial evolutions such as managed internet services or the emergence of new payment models. 

Looking back, I’ve noticed that possibly undue focus on net neutrality news may have crowded out the broader, and more substantive challenges of promoting infrastructure investment.  Happily, however, two fairly recent policy contributions by Ofcom may help to restore the balance. On 24^th November, it published its eagerly awaited statement, Ofcom's approach to net neutrality, setting out the steps it expects ISPs to take to ensure customers are aware of how internet traffic is being managed on their networks.  Without going into detail about the statement, it generally advocates a policy of non-intervention so far as traffic management is concerned, e.g.

“Our current view is that we should be able to rely on the operation of market forces to address the issues of blocking and discrimination, but we will keep this position under review”

For the time being, therefore, most concerns about neutrality are to be left to self-regulation and market forces. On that basis, I hope to avoid extensive coverage of the subject in future.  Instead, I’ll be concentrating on issues such as those raised in Ed Richard’s November 8th speech to the Total Telecom World Conference, ‘Competition & Investment in Superfast Broadband.  In fact I’ll be doing that next time…