By Aled Herbert, 12 October 2000 14:00
NEWS In an exclusive interview with silicon.com, Edmonds said he was working with legislation that is "16 years old and increasingly out of date" and that it needs to be changed if industry is to be regulated properly. Edmonds is part of a government consortium putting together a white paper on the future of the regulation of communications. He believes that a converged telecoms and media market needs a converged regulator - possibly called Ofcom. But he claimed the development of this regulatory body is not just a case of merging all the existing regulators. He argued: "I think that Oftel, ITC (Independent Television Commission), the Independent Broadcasting Authority and others will all be components of the new regulatory agency... but I don't think it'll be a straightforward merger. You need to start with a blank piece of paper and identify the kinds of issues that we need to regulate, and identify the principles on which we're going to build regulations. " He added that legislation needs to be developed within "a new framework from the bottom upwards". Edmonds also rejected criticism that the watchdog had been slow to act over unbundling the local loop and introducing unmetered internet access. "Oftel received intense criticism over the unbundling of the local loop. It so happens in the UK that there's no legislation and no European directive to support the unbundling, yet we did it in just under two years," he said However he did concede that Oftel has to move faster still and foster a "sense of immediacy". You can watch the Agenda Setters interview by clicking on the link above. Plus, don't forget to check out silicon.com's special feature Broadband: Beyond ADSL at http://www.silicon.com/broadband
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