Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to promote competition in the telecommunications market.

It is a matter for Ofcom to monitor and regulate competition in electronic communications markets and periodically to review the operation of the markets. The Regulator announced in March this year a Strategic Review of Digital Communications in the UK. Maintaining and promoting competition in the telecommunications market is a key area that it is considering, as set out in theDiscussion Document Ofcom[O1]published in July. This can be found athttp://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/dcr_discussion/summary/digital-comms-review.pdf

The European Commission has just begun a review of the Electronic Communications regulatory Framework. The promotion of competition in the telecommunications sector is high on the UK’s list of objectives for this review.

The UK remains a highly competitive market. It has the lowest available stand alone fixed broadband cost among the six biggest countries in Europe, the average price of a residential fixed broadband package has fallen by 40% in real terms between 2004 and 2014. The UK also hasthe second cheapest mobile tariffs. There are over a dozen companies offering fixed broadband services, either over their own infrastructure or through local loop unbundling. In mobile, as well as the 4 major mobile network operators, there are over 40 virtual network operators offering services.