Once again the issue of a plebiscite for the independence of Scotland is being discussed. The likely effects of independence on the telecommunications sector have previously been analysed, but need both to be reconsidered and to be subjected to debate and parliamentary scrutiny. Necessarily, it...

Corruption has been identified as a significant issue in telecommunications, seen in bribery and nepotism over many years, raising questions as to whether there are comparable problems with the Internet. Complex systems of Internet governance have excluded the issue, failing to put in place any...

Better regulation is intended to serve as a framework to increase economic competitiveness, ensuring that legislation and rules imposed by all levels of government are proportionate and will help deliver more jobs and economic growth. Legislation and regulations at all levels which might have a...

Digital technologies are being adopted at a faster pace than previous waves of innovation, and their use is re-shaping administration and business, consumer behaviour and social interactions. They are subject to widely varying regimes, from lightly regulated but heavily standardised global...

While attention has been given to the uses of big data by network operators and to the provision of open data by governments, there has been no systematic attempt to re-examine the regulatory systems for telecommunications. The power of public authorities to access the big data held by operators...

The internal market was to have been completed in 1992, yet for telecommunications progress stalled some years ago. In 2003 a legal framework came into force that contained complex mechanisms for the harmonisation of regulatory decision making, with regulators bound to work to complete the...

As national and regional ICT strategies are put in place there is a need for appropriate policy instruments and institutions to oversee their implementation, including the growing number of national regulatory authorities for telecommunications. They have become important actors in creating and...

The Second EU Roaming Regulation extended the scope and duration of the regulation of the prices for international mobile roaming. It is now subject to review by the European Commission, with the option of a further legislative proposal. Some waterbed effects can be seen in prices for...

For three decades the government of South Africa has sought to make telecommunications universally available and affordable. In its last days, the National Party government persuaded with the African National Congress (ANC) there should be licences for two competing international groups to build...

International mobile roaming has been subject to market interventions since the 1990s, first requiring operators to be provide customers with roaming, then trying to limit the increasing prices, that were seemingly immune to the effects of competition. The European Commission, in trying to...