Everything written so far on telecommunications in OpenFalklands has been grounded in publicly available facts and documented statements, except for my recent speculative post on the Google undersea cable. This post is my second attempt at pure speculation, an exercise in understanding the incentives – the driving forces that influence choices and actions – facing the Falkland Islands Government (FIG) and Sure South Atlantic (Sure) as the exclusive licence expiry approaches with no notice being given. Nothing here should be read as a claim about what either party is actually doing. It is simply an attempt to understand why the current situation looks the way it does.
FIG’s Possible Incentives
Why might FIG have chosen not to serve notice yet? Several explanations are possible, and each suggests a different way of interpreting the current situation.
The delay in providing notice to Sure means that FIG still retains maximum flexibility. Whether that flexibility strengthens or weakens its position depends very much on how the current situation is interpreted.
FIG still holds a powerful card it has yet to play: a formal notice to Sure, which could have been given in January 2026. Once notice is actually served, the transition process begins, and the timetable becomes much more difficult to reverse. Until that point, FIG retains maximum flexibility.
From one perspective, delay itself has strategic value to FIG. The longer the decision is deferred, the greater the uncertainty facing Sure. A company confronting the possible loss of its exclusive licence may become increasingly willing to offer concessions, investment and service improvements in the hope of securing a favourable licence renewal.
Although I have had no visibility into the findings, the Cambridge Management Consulting PME process, which was completed at the end of 2025, appears likely to have shown that alternatives to the existing arrangement are available. Even if FIG ultimately preferred a reformed relationship with Sure, the availability of credible alternatives would enhance its negotiating leverage with Sure.
Yet there is another interpretation. The strongest leverage may have existed when the PME exercise had just concluded, and interested operators were actively engaged. As time passes, market interest will fade, and replacement becomes more difficult. Delay may preserve flexibility while simultaneously weakening FIG’s bargaining power.
The phrase “best outcome rather than the quickest one”, used by FIG’s Chief Executive in the reply to the Connected Falklands Group open letter, can therefore be interpreted in two very different ways. One interpretation sees delay as a means of preserving leverage. Another sees urgency and clear deadlines as the mechanism most likely to produce the best outcome.
It should also be recognised that FIG’s Commercial and Development Director has publicly stated that “ExCo will be told when notice will be served later this year“.
Sure’s Possible Incentives
Sure’s position in May 2026 looks very different from that of March 2025. The confrontational tone adopted during the earlier presentations gave way to a much more conciliatory approach during the Chamber meetings led by the company’s CEO on his visit to Stanley.
This shift may simply reflect the recognition that opposing community sentiment – as it did over Starlink – is not a strong position from which to negotiate a renewed relationship. Being perceived as a willing partner is considerably more advantageous.
At the same time, goodwill costs relatively little when it is not backed by major capital commitments. The increase in mobile speeds was a genuine improvement, albeit one tempered by the lack of any increase in data quotas. Moreover, it appears to have been delivered largely by reallocating existing capacity rather than through substantial new investment.
There is also a financial dimension. Compensation payments arising from the Starlink agreement, together with FIG’s annual subsidy for satellite capacity, are understood to provide Sure with revenue worth up to £3 million per year. That revenue exists only while the current framework remains in place.
Time may therefore not be working against Sure in the way some assume. The longer the process takes, the more familiar the existing arrangements become and the more likely it is that interest from alternative operators fades. In those circumstances, the incumbent’s strongest strategy may be not to resist change but to shape it, positioning itself as the safe, reformed choice post 2027.
Where the Two Strategies Might Reinforce Each Other
The most interesting possibility arises when these two speculative strategies are considered side by side.
If FIG’s rational interest is to delay in order to better understand the implications of giving notice, maximise its leverage and keep its options open, and Sure’s rational interest is to delay in order to demonstrate reform while collecting compensation income and avoiding major capital commitments, then both parties could find themselves, for entirely different reasons, relatively comfortable with the current pace of events.
That would not imply collusion or improper coordination. It would simply reflect two parties whose interests, for now, happen to point in a similar direction, even though their longer-term objectives may diverge sharply. FIG ultimately wants either genuine reform or a much-improved Sure deal. Sure ultimately wants to preserve as much of its position as possible, ideally while continuing to receive compensation payments for as long as the current framework remains in place. But in the short term, neither may feel any great urgency to disrupt the status quo.
The St Helena Precedent
There is a further possibility worth considering, albeit one that would be difficult to reconcile with FIG’s stated intention to serve notice later this year. It fits neither FIG’s nor Sure’s strategy as described above. It may be the simplest outcome of all: allowing the existing arrangement to continue by default.
Sure’s exclusive licence in St Helena expired in December 2025. Yet, as far as the public record shows, no formal notice was given, no competitive process was launched, and no new operator has been announced. Six months later, and with no public statement from the St Helena Government, the visible outcome appears to have been continuity rather than change. I wrote about St Helena’s telecommunications position back in 2025.
If that is an accurate reading of events, it raises an obvious question for the Falklands. FIG’s Chief Executive has confirmed that a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with the Government of St Helena to share information between the two territories.
One lesson FIG could draw is that allowing a licence to expire without a clear plan does not necessarily lead to immediate disruption. The sky does not fall. That alone could reduce the perceived urgency surrounding the Falklands’ own timetable.
The counterargument is that the absence of disruption is not the same as the absence of cost. Continuity without a clear framework or timetable may simply mean that an opportunity for structural reform has quietly slipped away. A St Helena resident recently observed that “everyone still complains about buffering, stuttering and stammering, time-outs and bad connections.“
If so, St Helena would represent not successful caution, but precisely the kind of drift that this series of OpenFalklands posts has been warning about.
Which lesson FIG ultimately draws from St Helena is impossible to know from outside. But given the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding, it seems reasonable to assume that whatever lessons St Helena ultimately provides are now part of FIG’s thinking.
A Final Thought
None of this is offered as an account of what is actually happening behind closed doors under the umbrella of “commercially confidential” discussions. It is simply an attempt to understand, through the lens of incentives rather than intentions, why a situation that looks like drift to outside observers might look quite different, and quite rational, from the inside of either organisation.
Sometimes the most useful question is not what someone is doing, but what I would do in their position. Of course, all of this assumes that both organisations are acting in accordance with a coherent strategy. Another possibility is that no grand strategy exists at all. Governments and companies often contain competing priorities, differing risk appetites and a natural reluctance to make irreversible decisions. What looks like deliberate drift from the outside may simply be caution, uncertainty or disagreement about the best way forward – even if this is informed by expert consultants.
In that sense, perhaps the greatest danger is not a carefully calculated strategy, but simply inertia. History suggests that institutions often drift not because anyone consciously intends them to, but because delaying difficult decisions is easier than making them.
Chris Gare, OpenFalklands, June 2026, copyright OpenFalklands
