Final Ofcom Plan for 2019-20 Confirms Mobile and Broadband Changes

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today published their final annual plan for 2019/20, which summarises all of the major work they intend to do this year (e.g. boosting mobile coverage, new consumer protections, implementing the 10Mbps USO for broadband and promoting investment in “fibre” networks etc.).

The plan itself doesn’t contain any major new developments, although it does delivery a useful overview of their key works areas and includes some new dates for the changes they’re planning to introduce. Ofcom’s budget for the coming year (£124.2m) also remains the same as it was last year and they’re trying to further reduce their “like-for-like budget, in real terms, wherever we can.”

However, we suspect that the UK Internet Service Providers Association will be displeased to note that Ofcom hasn’t done much to address their concerns (here). The ISPA previously noted that the plan lacked a comprehensive understanding of the business ISP market (e.g. inconsistent definitions of business customers across market interventions), was unclear on their approach to regulating the industry post-Brexit (nobody can easily answer this right now) and didn’t consider a more targeted (less general) intervention in the consumer market etc.

You can read the annual plan here and we’ve pasted a summary below of the key broadband, mobile and pro-consumer measures that will be introduced or consulted upon over the coming year to March 2020. Additionally, from April 2019, Ofcom will strengthen their Communications Consumer Panel (designed to be an independent statutory voice of the consumer in the telecoms sector) by increasing its budget (50%). “This will enable it to carry out a broader programme of consumer advocacy work,” said Ofcom.