Critical junctures in United Kingdom telecommunications policy

Telecommunications policy in the United Kingdom has had long periods of relatively minor changes, interspersed by short bursts of major changes. The electoral success of the Conservative Party in 1979 opened one of these critical junctures, enabling the creation of a regulatory state that persists today. The subsequent successful export of that regulatory governance model to the European Community (later Union) began a succession of additions and modifications. A smaller scale critical juncture came with the 2003 decision of a new regulator to review the rules for local access networks, leading to the separation of Openreach from BT, which persists today. A much grander critical juncture came with Brexit, severing connections with European Union legal, policy and regulatory processes, including those in telecommunications. Critical junctures can be a useful tool in analysing changes in telecommunications policy. • Application of a theoretical model of institutional change. • Analysis of examples from the United Kingdom. • Critical junctures are shown to be helpful in explaining the conditions necessary for major changes in regulatory systems.