The Digital Economy Act 2010 ("the Act") gave Ofcom a new duty to provide a report to the Secretary of State every three years on the state of the UK's communications infrastructure.
As this is a new duty and because the Act gives Ofcom some discretion over which networks and services we report on, we published a consultation in July 2010 setting out our proposed approach to fulfilling the new duty and inviting stakeholder views. Amongst other things, we set out our proposals on which networks and services we would report on, what types of data we would require and where the data could be sourced.
This statement summarises the responses we received and sets out our current views on the approach we will take to producing the first Infrastructure Report. The first report will focus on voice and data services provided to the general public and the networks which support them. We will also report on digital television and radio services and networks.
Over the coming months we will be gathering data from the largest providers of these services and networks and collating data already held by Ofcom. We will continue to engage with industry with a view to minimising the burden of data gathering whilst ensuring we gather the necessary data to fulfil our duties under the Act and produce a report of value to government, consumers and industry.