Ofcom has announced that its first UK Communications Infrastructure Report will be released to the government by 7th August 2011. The report, a requirement of the Digital Economy Act 2010 (DEA), seeks to provide a detailed technical and commercial overview of the country's consumer fixed voice, broadband, IPTV (internet television) and mobile services.


The report will recycle a lot of the data that Ofcom has already gleamed from other studies and reports, such as its research into broadband ISP speeds, mobile coverage and the wider consumer communications market. However it will also include a number of fairly new areas.

Ofcom Communications Infrastructure Report - New Fields (sample)
* Infrastructure Sharing
* Wholesale Network Access Traffic / Capacity
* Geographic Coverage of the Different Networks and Services
* Telecoms Network Resilience and Availability Data
* International Comparisons with other non-UK Countries

Ofcom will need to produce such a report once every three years and it's first one will focus upon mobile coverage, broadband ISP speeds, the availability of Next Generation Access (NGA) networks, IPTV and Wi-Fi Hotspot access. There's no mention of a need to monitor the effectiveness of the governments internet copyright infringement policies.

Only the largest providers, which make up 85% of the market share, will need to supply relevant data. These include BT , Arqiva , BBC , Everything Everywhere (T-Mobile / Orange) , D3 & SDN , Sky Broadband , KCOM ( KC / Karoo ) , O2 , TalkTalk , Three (3) , Virgin Media and Vodafone UK.

The UK Communications Infrastructure Report - Approach Summary (.PDF)
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/uk-comms-infrastructure/statement/Statement.pdf