2003 promises to be an interesting year for the British telecommunications industry. The formation of Ofcom, which merges five regulatory bodies - the Independent Television Commission (ITC), the Radio Authority, the Office of Telecommunications, the Broadcasting Standards Commission and the Radiocommunications Agency - creates a regulatory body that reflects the increasing convergence between the media and telecommunications.

Chairman of Ofcom, Lord Currie, joined the recent Global Telecom Women’s Network (GTWN) Power Luncheon to discuss how OFCOM plans to “usher in a new era of telecoms and media regulation” when it launches later this year as the UK’s collective regulator for all electronic networks and services. Lord Currie noted that as Ofcom takes shape, it has considered the spectrum of relationships between “the regulator” and “the regulated”, from the one extreme of self-regulation to the other of on-going confrontation. Currie explained that Ofcom seeks to encourage “co-regulation”, in which “the regulated” take an active role in proposing appropriate regulations and engage constructively in the regulatory dialogue.

Baroness Jay, Non-Executive Director of BT, presented a response to Lord Currie's remarks, noting industry's concern over recent changes to wording in the Ofcom bill from "light touch" to "appropriate" in describing Ofcom's regulatory approach. Lord Currie countered, “We want industry to think about what Ofcom can be doing and to come to us with solutions, not complaints”, he said. “Although we need the freedom to intervene decisively [and hence changed the wording of the bill to reflect this], we intend to be as deregulatory as possible”.

One goal of Ofcom is to make timely decisions, not just good ones. Unlike its predecessors, Ofcom have a collective decision making body, which Lord Currie believes will provide a valuable buffer between the decision makers and those running the organisation on a day-to-day basis. Ofcom will be responsible for harmonising content regulation across media. Currie observed that there are two aspects to regulation: first, ensuring people can see what they want to see, but second, ensuring that users don’t have content forced upon them that they may wish to be shown. Lord Currie noted that it may well be a technology solution that best addresses this latter issue of how to bar inappropriate content. Self-regulation has also been quite successful in this area, as seen in the fixed internet world.

Overall, it was agreed that the challenges facing Ofcom are many. Key to its success in regulating across the multiple channels that exist today will be industry's pro-active stance in identifying potential issues before they arise – and its help in constructing solutions that protect both the industry and, ultimately, the consumer.

The purpose of the GTWN is to provide a forum  for executive women active in  telecommunications to get together and   “network”; to provide a role model to younger  women managers active in telecommunications; and to contribute to the evolving global information society in a positive manner.  The members are women in top-management and decision-making roles in telecommunication companies or businesses and women who are the owners or presidents of companies or business engaged in the telecommunications field.

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http://www.gtwn.org