Skip to navigation Skip to main content Skip to footer

The Telecommunications (Security) Act: An Opportunity to Build for the Future

11 April 2023

As the deadline to meet the UK Telecoms (Security) Act (TSA) compliance looms large over the coming years, UK telecom providers are under pressure to ensure their systems and services are aligned with the TSA-related Code of Practice (CoP). But beyond mandatory compliance, there’s also a compelling business case for organisations to use the TSA as an opportunity to build more secure, resilient infrastructure. 

In fact, achieving TSA compliance before the deadlines could provide competitive differentiation, potentially enabling preferred status in contracting with other providers and providing an opportunity to build for the future. 

Keeping Up With Standards

Amid global imperatives to improve and modernise data networks, it’s vital for UK organisations to keep up with modern security standards and expectations in order to protect critical national infrastructure, maintain competitive advantage, and attract additional investment. Closing the digital divide and maintaining a strong, secure technological infrastructure is essential not only for individual organisations’ growth but also for the economic prosperity of the entire country.

Of course, while all of this sounds brilliant, it’s difficult to build for the future when you’ve got barely enough staff to meet today’s needs. The shortage in cybersecurity professionals already has many telecom organisations struggling, and the added burden and complexity of TSA compliance compounds the issue.  

That’s where third-party partners like NCC Group and NetPMD can assist. Working together, we can serve not only as a force multiplier— giving you the resources and expertise to meet TSA compliance— but also as a dedicated team helping you to build a more secure future.

Our global team brings IT security expertise within the context of telecoms and cloud services to cover the entire gamut of modern infrastructure, from legacy to next-generation solutions. Starting with a combined assessment of your current network and systems, we can benchmark your existing security posture against the TSA CoP requirements and best practices and advise on a plan to achieve compliance.

 

Finding the Right Team

Beyond that, we can also help your organisation modernise for the future, ensuring that security is baked in from initial concept to go-live, with secure design and integration across all the systems and services your business depends on. Our advisory services include evaluating whether it’s time to retire legacy systems and networks or bring them up to date, and deploying new architecture with the latest protections built in. 

Building a roadmap for the future based on best practices is a much more proactive and growth-oriented approach to security. Aside from avoiding compliance scrambles in the future, it also provides a much stronger footing for growth.

Here’s how:

  • Aligning your business objectives with a technology strategy enables risk mitigation with a balanced approach and ensures value realisation from security investments rather than just buying technology for technology’s sake.
  • Future-ready security helps to position you for market expansion. Instead of architecting for just which Tier you are in, we can build with an eye for the more stringent, higher-Tier requirements— giving you a head start to go after those markets.
  • A secure infrastructure supports scale and expansion beyond your visible timeline. As investors increasingly consider the cyber security landscape, our combined services can help you build a resilient and attractive offering—whether that’s your next product or positioning you for the next tranche of funding.
  • A proactive approach satisfies due diligence, positioning you for an exit strategy if an acquisition is part of your long-term goal.

The TSA Code of Practice isn’t just an arbitrary mandate—it’s a well-crafted, world-class, cyber security best practices guide. That means achieving TSA compliance offers a once in a lifetime opportunity to modernise your services for growth and position your business as a leader in the telecommunications infrastructure and ecosystem of the future.

Partnering with NCC Group and NetPMD for our security-by-design advisory and implementation service provides the comprehensive, flexible, and vendor-agnostic expertise you need now and down the road. Our end-to-end services include construction planning and fiber activation wrapped with “best in class” cyber security. It’s all the more enriched due to our expertise in the global threat landscape and regulatory environment.

We work as an extension of your team to understand and align security with your business objectives and deliver highly valuable and dynamic services.

Get started on your path to TSA compliance for a stronger, more resilient future.