The Changing Face of British Telecommunications in the 80s – Telecommunications Act 1984

In 1984 British Telecom’s dominance of the telecommunication industry was squashed as the country went through privatisation and British Telecom became a plc company renamed as BT.

This brought about huge changes in the telecoms industry, now seeing over 300 licensed companies running telecommunication services in the UK.

In 2002, the European Union brought in new directives covering framework, authorisation, access and interconnection and universal services. These changes were implemented in 2003 to push competitiveness within the industry and increase consistent practice throughout Europe.

The Communications Act 2002 made provisions in the UK for the above implementations and brought into production the regulation authority Ofcom. The new body encompassed Broadcasting Standards Commission, The Independent Television Commission, Oftel, the Radio Authority and Radio-Communications Agency, seeing an end to the individual listed commissions and replacing with the one regulator, Ofcom.

Ofcom gained the full extent of its duties and powers with the production of the Communications Act 2003, allowing them to monitor, regulate and even impose restrictions on companies not complying with Ofcom’s guidelines.

The Communications Act 2003 therefore saw phone paid services regulated by Ofcom. In 2007 it was decided that separate entity PhonepayPlus would take on the roll of phone paid services regulator on Ofcom’s behalf.