Ofcom has been handed a growth plan covering AI, broadband, mobile coverage, spectrum, broadcasting and the postal service, leaving the humble telecommunications mast to wonder whether it should now acquire a lanyard, a leadership coach and an opinion on productivity.
The Government’s goals set out intended work across the communications landscape. There is innovation to encourage, investment to support, coverage data to improve and regulation to review. The mast has responded with the calm professionalism of a structure that has spent years pointing at the sky while institutions debate whether the signal is technically present.
Ofcom will examine how artificial intelligence could affect telecoms customers and whether existing rules need changing. It will also work on fixed networks, business connectivity and the transition to newer telephone systems. This is a sensible attempt to make complicated infrastructure behave like a service rather than a family group chat in which everybody has received the router problem and nobody has accepted responsibility.
Mobile coverage is included too, with better information intended to distinguish between a signal that exists on a map and one that exists in the room where you are standing. The difference has long been protected by the ancient regulatory principle that three bars means anything, provided the customer does not move, breathe or ask the phone to load a page.
The goals also cover spectrum, including future uses for satellite broadband and wireless services. Broadcasting regulation is due for attention, while the postal service is expected to remain financially sustainable. One regulator is therefore being invited to supervise the future, modernise the present and persuade a letter to arrive before the recipient changes address, retires and starts receiving mail at a museum.
The serious point is that clearer data and carefully designed rules may help households and businesses make better choices. The comic point is that every sector has been invited to deliver growth, including the post, which is now being encouraged to innovate beyond its established model of placing yesterday inside today and calling the delay an operational journey.
Ofcom’s goals offer a measured programme of reviews, evidence gathering and decisions still to come. The mast has accepted the assignment, opened a spreadsheet and searched for a signal strong enough to reach the cell marked quick wins. It found one, but the spreadsheet said it was only available in selected areas.
Source: GOV.UK.
