Broadband News

Stephen Carter’s interim Digital Britain report was published today as more of a conversation starter than a list of proposed policies some may have wished for. The main new commitment outlined in the report is raising the Universal Service Obligation from 28.8Kb to up to 2Mb through fixed line and, where necessary, mobile technology.

The full report is due in late Spring and today’s interim publication set out the scope for a conversation the Government wants to have with the industry.  As such it announced a Strategy Group would be formed to discover what obstacles are in the way of rolling out next generation broadband and how these might be best overcome. Crucially, although the report concurred with the Caio report that faster broadband networks should be ‘market-led’, Carter did point out that the government was not totally closed to the idea of some level of state funding.

The report outlined: “We will, by the time of the final Digital Britain Report, have considered the value for money case for whether public incentives have a part to play in enabling further next generation broadband deployment, beyond current market-led initiatives.”

Carter also pointed out the importance of local government, regional development agencies and community broadband groups but voiced fears of ‘islands of connectivity’ popping up around the country which may not be interoperable. For this reason, the government has agreed to a suggestion from the Community Broadband Network that an umbrella organisation is set up to ensure local projects have a template and set of best practice principles to apply to projects to ensure interoperability across the country.

Carrot offered to mobile operators

As predicted by SamKnows the report placed a potentially heavy reliance on mobile technology to help deliver the updated USO of up to 2Mb where it may be too expensive for BT to facilitate. The mobile operators have always been cautious of becoming involved in next generation plans with the Government because of the finite nature of their spectrum deals and so Carter hinted that the Government would consider making their existing 3G licences indefinite so they could be assured of long term revenues to pay back further infrastructure roll out.

Carter also warned the industry that if agreement on access to extra cellular bandwidth could not be reached, the Government would consider an imposed solution.

Piracy measures

Whilst the Government did not go as far as supporting the ‘three strikes and out’ principle the record industry would like to be applied to illegal P2P file sharers, Carter did point out it believes technology should be put in place to make it more difficult for piracy to take place.

He also pointed to today’s existing best practice being made law, enforcing ISPs, when given evidence from a rights holder, to warn perpetrators and then pass over their details so repeat offenders can have civil proceeding brought against them.

The report suggested that by the time the full report is published in Spring it will have consulted on, and perhaps formed, a Rights Agency through which distributors and rights holders could uphold right holders’ intellectual property and coordinate copyright protection systems with ISPs and distributors. If approved, the body would be funded by small contributions from rights holders, distributors and ISPs.

A spokesman for TalkTalk reveals it welcomes the abondonment of 'three strikes and you're out' as a potenital policy.

Mostly welcomed

The interim Digital Britain report was positioned by Stephen Carter as the basis on which the government could further consult with the telecommunications industry and, as such, broadband providers were largely positive in their reaction.

Neil Berkett, CEO of Virgin Media said: "The Government's interim report does a good job of identifying the questions that policy-makers and the industry need to confront and some sensible mechanisms for taking them forward. We are committed to engaging with the industry, Government and Ofcom to consider in more detail how we can work together to address these challenges."

Felix Geyr, Managing Director of Be Broadband, pointed out the many uncertainties ahead but largely welcomed the further opening up of dialogue.

“We welcome anything that raises quality broadband services,” he said. “We’re still not sure about the direction the industry will take and how the infrastructure will be provided for, but we look forward to helping develop the proposals that the government has outlined.”

However, there are also some analysts, such as Richard Heap, Head of Telecoms, at BDO Stoy Hayward who believe a commitment to ‘up to’ 2Mb is not ambitious enough.

“We were very surprised that the Government is only advocating a broadband network speed of 2Mb/s by 2012. Given that a number of other ISPs offer speeds of up to 50Mb/s, this is akin to a snail’s pace and lacks ambition,” he blasted.

“In any case, this nonsensical speed risks being outdated before it is even implemented as speeds of 50Mb/s will be the norm by 2012. The 2Mb/s connection will allow operators to ‘patch’ existing networks and it avoids creating a ‘future proof’ broadband for Britain. If Britain wants to be seen as a leader in the digital age it will have to come up with something more futuristic than this.”

The CBI welcomed the report but its Deputy Director-General, John Cridland, revealed the business community will want to see ‘the right conditions’ are in place before the necessary investment decisions which will build the next generation networks are made.

“Business wants to see a clear vision of how to move to a fully functioning knowledge economy,” he said.

"Extended access to broadband for businesses and households has to be the right way forward, but there must be a dialogue between business and government about how this can be funded.

“The Government must also put in place the right conditions for essential investment in next generation broadband.”