Vodafone Group said that operators may need to “develop the kind of content policies and procedures followed by OTT companies and others” as the telecoms sector continues to converge with the TV market and the role of the connectivity provider evolves.

The operator made the observation in line with the release of the 2015 update to its law enforcement disclosure report, which provides insight into the legal frameworks, governance principles and operating procedures associated with demands from law enforcement and intelligence agencies across 28 countries.

Vodafone said that currently, “our core business is connectivity”, and that “our focus is on ensuring that the vast volumes of data which pass through our networks every day reach their intended destination as quickly, efficiently and securely as possible”.

“Operators therefore do not have direct editorial control over the very large majority of content and services which flow through their networks,” it noted.

But as customers shift to quadplay packages including TV content, “telecommunications operators will increasingly host commercial content (such as movies and TV shows) on their own servers”.

“It is also conceivable that operators may begin to host large volumes of user-generated content at some point in the future,” it continued.

This could mean that operators need to put policies in place that are akin to those used by so-called “over-the-top” players such as Facebook, Twitter and Google.

“OTT companies receive far more complaints and takedown demands (from their users as well as from authorities and agencies or the courts” than any telecommunications operator,” Vodafone wrote.

While Vodafone’s report promotes transparency, it said that “unfortunately, at present, it is not possible for Vodafone to present a meaningful statistical analysis of government efforts to block or restrict access to services or content”.

It also warned that “some of the statistical approaches used to date act, if anything, as a barrier to transparency as the methodologies used are highly variable and disjointed”.

Vodafone published its first Law Enforcement Disclosure Report last year, stating that it was the first time an operator had created such a document.