Mobile Networks: Resilience

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I am not sure my noble friend is entirely correct. The problem involved Ericsson, a third-party software supplier to O2, and had worldwide effects, so there is no guarantee that his foreign phone would have worked. I hasten to add that that was only for data, not voice.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

Does this whole episode not highlight the need to completely reconfigure the universal service obligation, which is failing so badly, to include mobile telephony—it does not at present—and to ensure the whole system focuses more on infrastructure capacity, reliability and service?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

As the noble Lord knows perfectly well, the universal service directive, which is the basis for the universal service obligation, only includes fixed-line service. Therefore, it would be impossible under European law to include mobile.