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The UK has, for many decades, benefited from a public switched telephone
network that has delivered a reasonable expectation of privacy and
integrity of communications, and that has offered substantial resilience
at the regional and national level. Packet-switched services provided
to the private and public sectors had similar characteristics.
Over the past few years, however, the risk to the security of telecoms
networks has increased with the introduction of so-called “Next
Generation Networks” (NGN). These networks are characterised
by a variety of suppliers being involved in the delivery of a service
as a result of deregulation, local-loop unbundling, outsourcing
and off-shoring. Also, centralised call control and the increasing
use of internet technologies in these networks means there is more
awareness of security weaknesses amongst those wishing to cause
harm.
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