Regulatory certainty to support long-term investment in full-fibre broadband
Full-fibre broadband will be increasingly important to people and businesses, as they demand more from their communications services over the coming decade and beyond. Full-fibre networks will also play an important role in the deployment of new 5G mobile services, which are intended to deliver faster speeds and increased capacity for mobile users – as well as paving the way for innovative new applications.
In February 2016, Ofcom published its Strategic Review of Digital Communications. The review set out our strategy for regulating communications markets through to 2026. It represented a major strategic shift to incentivising more investment in full-fibre networks. Since then we have seen a number of companies commit to investing in full fibre.
This document sets out how we plan to reform the way we carry out competition assessments in telecoms markets, to further support network investments in the long term. We also explain the issues we will consider when managing the transition from copper to fibre networks over the coming years.