Telecommunications in the Falkland Islands, particularly the exclusive licence held by Sure International (Sure), continues to attract attention. One point that comes to the fore is the requirement for the Falkland Islands Government (FIG) to give two years’ notice before any change.
But what does that actually mean in practice?
The Director of Development and Commercial Services outlined the current situation in an interview with FITV.
“FIG can issue notices at any point from the first of January this year onwards. A decision about when this will happen is expected to be brought before the executive council later this year.”
In simple terms, the two-year notice period is exactly that. If FIG decides it wants to move away from the current model, whether by introducing competition, renegotiating terms, or putting the licence out to tender, it must formally notify the operator at least two years before the change takes effect.
The licence is due to end on 31st December 2027, so any decision to alter the current arrangement would have needed to have been signalled by January 2026 at the earliest – a deadline that has now passed.
This notice period exists for a reason. Telecommunications is not a short-term business. It involves significant infrastructure, long-term investment and operational planning. Sure needs certainty to manage staff, maintain services and plan possible upgrades. At the same time, FIG needs time to design any new regime, whether that involves a new licence, a different regulatory model, some form of competition or bringing on board a replacement local operator, as recently happened in Ascension Island.
In effect, the two-year window is intended to provide stability during the transition. It is there to ensure that changes can be made in an orderly way, rather than abruptly.
However, it also has another, less obvious implication.
Because of the length of the notice period, decisions about the future of telecommunications must be made well before the current Sure licence ends. By the time the public sees services change, the key decision will already have been taken years earlier.
This means that the real point of choice is not 2028, but much earlier.
It is also worth noting that giving notice does not automatically result in the existing operator being replaced. It simply opens the door to change. FIG could still decide to renegotiate a new exclusive licence, but on different terms. Alternatively, it could explore introducing competition or restructuring parts of the system. However, exclusivity as it is currently defined is ‘not on the cards’ due to Starlink.
In other words, the notice is not the outcome. It is only the starting point for a long process.
This is important because it highlights the difference between continuity and default operation. If no notice is given or is considerably delayed, the current arrangement will continue, and the opportunity to revisit the sector’s structure is pro rata deferred.
That does not mean that services stop or that anything dramatic happens overnight. It simply means that the existing model remains in place, along with its strengths and limitations.
The two-year notice requirement is therefore more than just a legal detail. It defines when decisions have to be made, how change can occur, and how much influence FIG has over the future direction of telecommunications in the Islands.
What is the state of planning in May 2026?
In September 2024, FIG commissioned a study in preparation for the expiry of Sure’s exclusive telecommunications licence. Phase 1 of the study was undertaken by Cambridge Management Consulting (CMC) and included several island visits. CMC publicly reviewed its views in March 2025 at Stanley Town Hall, although no full or even redacted version of the report has been released so far. The presentation can be downloaded here.
Phase 2 of CMC’s report was initiated in September 2025 with the Preliminary Market Engagement (PME) process. Phase 2 was completed by January 2026 and submitted to FIG early in 2026, but has yet to go before ExCo. CMC stated that FIG now has a set of costed, realistic strategic options tailored to the Falkland Islands.
It has now been approximately 20 months since CMC began work to propose options for licence expiration. According to public reporting, it increasingly appears that it could be as long as 25 months before FIG and ExCo can make any firm decisions on how to move forward.
Several additional months may also be required for the promised public consultation, potentially pushing the timeline to the back end of 2026 before notice can be given to Sure, alongside the expectation that FIG will have a clear and deliverable plan in place by then.
This pace is strikingly slow compared with the rapid evolution of telecommunications technologies, such as Direct-to-Device services, as discussed by Alistair Beak during his visit to Stanley. DtD could arrive sooner than expected or planned for.
In the next post, we will analyse the implications of this delayed notice and its potential consequences for the Falkland Islands.
Chris Gare, OpenFalklands, May 2026, copyright OpenFalklands
