Speech given by Dame Melanie Dawes to the Connected Britain event, 11 September 2024, London
Good morning.
Some years ago in Brighton, an Ofcom colleague is standing on top of the region’s tallest building. It’s a warm September day, and he’s 100 metres up with clear views across the English Channel.
Our man is trying hard not to disturb a nest of rare peregrine falcons. He’s holding a £30 computer and a metre-long aerial.
This is Rashid Mustapha, an engineer in our spectrum team. He’s about to trial his own creation: a new way to broadcast digital radio.
It’s so cheap and straightforward that, if he can make it work, hundreds of community stations around the UK could finally get on air.
As he turns on the equipment, a test signal of local seagulls starts to chirp through radios across the city.
Four months later, the birds are getting pretty good ratings. When it’s time to turn them off, some listeners are really not happy.
But the experiment has worked. Rash has developed ‘small-scale DAB’ for the UK. He has opened a doorway into digital radio for hundreds of stations – at a tiny fraction of the usual cost.
Since then we’ve had a series of trials, supported by Government funding. In 2021 the first services were launched, up in Tynemouth and South Shields.
Today, more than two hundred new stations are reaching nearby communities this way. Rash even got an MBE. He created a form of tech that might not always make headlines: passionate, personal, local. But it shows how innovation – and imagination – can create new opportunities for people to connect.
And that is why you and I are here today: finding ways to promote and deploy technologies that bring us closer together.
Our telecoms industry is world-leading, and Ofcom is proud to regulate it. We need to play our part in creating the conditions for you to thrive.
We want a market where investment can deliver fair returns; where competition can thrive; and where innovation can flourish.
You need a regulator that understands business. One that anticipates new technology. One that innovates itself, to keep pace with a changing market.
So what is Ofcom doing to help you power and grow our digital economy?
Today, I’d like to offer three examples.
Innovation in broadband
Let’s begin below ground, where a quiet revolution is transforming how we connect.
Five years ago, barely a tenth of British homes and offices could access ultrafast, future-proof, full-fibre broadband.
We knew, if this didn’t change, our networks would start to creak under the growing weight of demand for data.
Remote working, cloud computing, video streaming, multiplayer gaming… they all need speed and reliability.
We wanted full-fibre rollout to become a national infrastructure project, up there with home building, clean energy and high-speed rail.
We wanted Openreach, the biggest player, to accelerate its full-fibre plans. We also wanted to incentivise new networks, so competition would boost investment and innovation.
In short, we needed a radical new framework for regulation.
So to start, we became the first country in Europe to review – in its own right – the physical broadband market. In other words, the tunnels and telegraph poles that carry the wires.
Why did that matter? Well, it revealed the need for Openreach, the biggest player, to repair and expand its infrastructure. We also required the firm to make its ducts and poles available, unrestricted, for rivals laying their own lines. For new entrants, this literally halved the capital cost of connecting each new building.
But we needed to go further. As you know well, infrastructure projects involve risk. Investors want predictability and stability. If firms were going to build with confidence, we needed a new approach.
So we decided to move away from traditional, cost-based regulation. Instead, we allowed BT and others to set their own prices for innovative, ultrafast products – in return for keeping their profits if the investment paid off.
The industry responded with innovations of its own. This year, CityFibre – the third-largest network – showed us a new technique for splicing fibres within a single, flat cable. That saves serious time for engineers. CityFibre is among those investing in state-of-the-art monitoring systems. That means they can fix a fault before you, the customer, even sees it.
Challenger firms are competing on new datalink standards, which allow them to offer searing speeds far beyond a gigabit per second. Openreach is following suit. Broadband has never been so fast.
This is what happens when innovation and regulation work together.
Since our new regulation came into force, full-fibre growth has soared. The UK has the fastest roll-out of full fibre in Europe.
Around two thirds of premises are connected, on track to reach 97% within three years. Our subscriber growth is second only to France.
You helped make that happen.
And of course, everyone stands to benefit.
The immediate benefits are obvious. Fewer faults. Faster downloads. No buffering when Strictly starts on Saturday. You can probably tell I’m quite excited about that.
But the broadband revolution is about much more.
This is also about helping to grow our economy. Tackling the digital divide. Promoting digital inclusion. Supporting the modernisation of our public services.
So when people ask whether Britain can ‘do’ great national infrastructure projects, I say: Look at what you have achieved.
Look to broadband, where bold innovations in regulation, technology and civil engineering have combined to transform our position among leading economies.
Innovation online
That is the new world below us.
But what about the services that rely on these networks – the sites and apps we use every day at our homes and offices, in our farms and factories, on our buses and trains?
This online world is another crucible of change and disruption. Perhaps no other sector has seen more innovation over the last decade.
Just think – when this conference first met ten years ago, Instagram and Snapchat were mere toddlers. There was still no TikTok or Substack; no ChatGPT or deepfake video.
In a few short years, all that has changed. Some of it for the good. Lots of these online services have brought benefits.
But others carry risk. That’s why Parliament has passed the Online Safety Act, giving Ofcom the job of creating a safer life online for everyone in the UK.
Here, too, the UK is something of a pioneer. Other countries are introducing comparable laws. But arguably none has shown the UK’s ambition to address such a wide a range of harms, especially to our children.
Now, this is a big job. When it comes to online regulation – much like telecoms – we need thorough, responsive rules based on the best available evidence, data and research.
So Ofcom has recruited a range of people with expertise in AI, machine learning, digital identity and content moderation.
We are setting up a lab in Manchester, allowing our teams to get hands-on with the tech and explore what is possible.
For example, we’re using data to understand where children are spending their time online, and to spot patterns of behaviour. To help us assess risk, we’re building automated systems to check whether pornography sites have the right age checks in place.
We’re examining how large language models can analyse tech companies’ terms and conditions. That will allow us to identify firms who might not even have a policy on terror and illegal hate speech, let alone the right measures to address it.
Crucially, we are partnering with expert bodies and other regulators, both here and around the globe. We’ve spent time in the US, meeting the world’s biggest tech giants and learning how they’re improving trust and safety. What have they learned? Where are they heading?
This really matters – because ultimately, however responsive we are as a regulator, improving trust and safety online can only be achieved by industry itself. Whether it’s developing biometrics to reliably determine a young user’s age; or more effective tools to detect harmful content – we must allow space for commercial innovation to find the right answers.
We need to be open to businesses, and here to help. That’s why we’ve partnered with other digital regulators – the CMA, ICO and the FCA – to answer questions directly from industry innovators through an AI and Digital Hub. If you are bringing a new product, service or business model to market, and you need to understand the requirements of different regulators in areas like competition and data, you can contact the Hub and get a quick, joint response with the information you need.
Innovation in spectrum
Now to a final piece of inspiration.
Our journey has taken us from the Sussex skies to Silicon Valley, via the tunnels beneath our feet. To finish, let’s look to the skies. Not for seagulls, but for a different kind of bird.
Satellites.
This industry has never seen growth like today. Record numbers are in low orbit above the UK, changing how we live and connect.
Ofcom’s Space Programme is underpinning that work, making more spectrum available for satellites that bring benefits to the UK.
Some of these birds are carrying gigabit broadband to our remotest areas. Soon they will connect emergency services to your device, wherever you are.
Other satellites are improving our ability to predict the weather and monitor climate change. Still others are enabling new telescopes to observe faraway galaxies, furthering the understanding of the universe for humankind.
Back on Earth, local communities are benefiting too. Ofcom is taking a novel approach to making spectrum available, through a policy called ‘shared access’. It means we can open up airwaves to different users in very local areas.
That has led to private networks taking off across the UK. Right now, these are improving productivity and efficiency at manufacturing plants, ports and airports across the country.
Meanwhile, we’ve made new airwaves available for a new ground-based system, similar to GPS, which can improve the resilience of our critical national infrastructure. And using the same spectrum, we’re supporting DSIT to enable back-up services for positioning, navigation and timing.
In fact, that is just one area where we’re partnering with Government – and of course you’ll hear from the Telecoms Minister tomorrow. We’re also working with DSIT on innovation ‘sandboxes’, where business and academics can test new technology. As they do so, they generate data that can inform Ofcom’s future work on spectrum.
Conclusion
I hope that gives a flavour of just three areas – broadband, online safety and spectrum – where Ofcom is seeking to innovate.
These are fields where regulation can support your pioneering work. New technology and regulation working together.
You may have heard the old saying, “America innovates, Europe regulates”. Well, I believe that Britain can – and should – do both. Innovation and good regulation in harmony, not in opposition.
From the ground beneath your feet, to the phone in your pocket, to the satellites that circle the Earth, we want to be a regulator that backs innovation and supports the new networks that keep Britain connected.
Because to innovate is to lead. And I know this country has the ideas, imagination and expertise to lead the world in telecoms, online safety and wireless technology.
You are proof of that. So is Rashid Mustapha.
When a journalist asked Rash what inspired him to invent small-scale DAB, he instinctively replied: “I'm a broadcast engineer. So it’s in my blood to go looking for the answer to a problem.”
That will ring true for many of you. And when you face hurdles of your own, I hope Ofcom can support your efforts to overcome them.
I’m excited about what we can achieve.
So let’s keep working together.
And let’s keep looking for answers.
Thank you.