About

For over four decades, Stephen Temple has shaped UK and European telecoms policy at the highest levels, bridging government, industry, and research to deliver enduring infrastructure change.

Photos: Left - Just got French, German and Italian Agreement for his GSM MoU text, Right: Visiting Professor 5GIC 2025 (the hat and 2nd beer belong to a French government colleague who took the photo)

Currently

Cowriting a book on the hypothesis that GSM and 5G outcomes allow a government to predict whether a new strategy to be a world leader in some field of technology is going to spectacularly succeed or dismally fail. Anyone with insights on this welcome to contact the authors.

Voluntary Public Policy Roles (recent past)

• Since retirement in 2006 has been a voluntary contributor to DSIT/DCMS on telecoms, mobile, and spectrum policy via the former IET Communications Policy Panel (2012-23), later Spectrum Policy Forum (2019-22 Chair, Cluster 2), and Visiting Professor, University of Surrey 5G/6G Innovation Centre (2014-25).
• Originator of ~twenty-five "original" policy proposals over this period. Five of the twenty-five were adopted and with one having a high impact (ie Europe's “5G pioneer band” strategy that reoriented Europe’s 5G spectrum policy post-WRC-15). From the original twenty five ideas...there are five still in play.
• All of this work was unpaid and driven by a passion for the UK to have better and better mobile infrastructures. Overall it has been a losing battle against the current orthodoxy of "leaving it all to the market". The UK's current mobile networks fall disappointingly well-short of the reliability that will be needed for Britain to make a success of the coming AI era.

UK Industry (ntl & Vodafone, 1996–2006):

• Led ntl’s broadband technology strategy that delivered a "best in class" fixed broadband service and triggered BT’s shift from ISDN to ADSL.
• Managed post-merger unification of incompatible UK cable TV networks and post–ntl Chapter 11 restructuring.
• At Vodafone Group Strategy, helped pivot strategy from a pure wireless-only model to integrated broadband infrastructure that had significant impact in Germany.

UK Civil Service (DTI, Home Office, Ministry of Posts & Telecoms, 1971–1996):

• Author of the 1987 GSM MoU — the global foundation framework enabling seamless mobile roaming, pervasive interoperability, and led to vast global economies of scale. The scale made the mobile quickly affordable to almost everyone on the planet. The roaming and interoperability foundations are the reasons why, today, a person can step off a plane in any country in the world, switch on their smartphone and it just works.
• Wrote the 1988 Phones on the Move consultation, unlocking 1800 MHz spectrum for mobile (a UK first) that accelerated the transition of mobile phones to a consumer mass market.
• Co-founded the Digital Video Broadcasting Standards Group; came up with the multiplex as a regulatory concept, secured legislation enabling DAB and DTT (the latter freeing spectrum critical to 4G coverage exceeding that of 3G).
• Senior adviser to ministers on telecoms and broadcasting industrial policy, spectrum as a policy tool for infrastructure digital transformations, and national resilience, including Cold War civil defence planning.

He was awarded a CBE in 1996 for services to trade and industry. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the IET. He won the 1994 IEEE prize for international. communications and the 1996 GSM Association Chairman’s Award for Outstanding Achievement.