Ofcom's infrastructure reports restricted to top six players

The law, which was passed just before this year's general election, orders telecoms regulator Ofcom to produce a report for Government on the state of the UK's telecoms infrastructure every three years.

Ofcom has now outlined its proposal for what information that report will carry, and how it will be gathered. The regulator has said that it will only survey the most-used kinds of telecoms services and will only gather data from the top handful of companies in any market.

"The Act gives Ofcom discretion over which networks and services to include in the report. We propose to include the most widely available and most commonly used public voice, data and digital broadcasting networks and services," said its proposal. "We do not plan to focus on bespoke networks or services designed for larger businesses, but we do intend to cover basic voice and leased line connectivity for smaller businesses and smaller business sites."

"For each type of network and service in the report, we are proposing to ask at most the largest half dozen companies for detailed data," it said. "While this approach will not give us a complete picture of the UK’s infrastructure, in most instances it will give coverage of the vast majority of the market and therefore a good view of the overall UK position."

Ofcom said that it did not want to disrupt the business activity of telecoms firms with requests for vast amounts of data.

"Any collection of data by the regulator imposes a burden on industry and this new duty potentially calls for data across a wide range of metrics and companies," it said. "Ofcom is keen to work with industry to establish an efficient and proportionate process which ensures that the obligations under the Act are met and that the potential benefits of the new report can be realised while minimising the burden on operators."

"Drawing valid conclusions in the report will require the use of data provided by many different companies in order to develop a view of the overall state of UK infrastructure," it said. "Identifying and using ‘industry standard’ forms of data may lower the burden, improve comparability and should help make the reporting more effective."

Ofcom also said that it would choose an area of telecoms activity to focus on in each report in addition to the standard subjects of its reports.

"We intend to focus on one or two topics of particular consumer or policy interest in each report," it said. "For the first report we plan to highlight broadband and 2G mobile coverage. We also intend to capture developments in important emerging technologies which are not on the regular reporting list. For the first report, next generation fixed and mobile broadband access is the expected candidate."

Ofcom said that it would use several sources of information for its first report. These include its own data on the use of the wireless spectrum; its own coverage models for the availability of services across the country; companies' information on emergency response plans; information from companies on the sharing of infrastructure; and publicly available data for international comparisons.

The consultation on the proposed reporting methods will close in September and Ofcom proposes to publish the first report in August 2011, reporting on the state of the market in June 2011.