Category: Regulation

Trefor Davies, CTO of Timico sets out an ISP perspective on the Digital Economy Bill and how it may be damaging to the provision of Internet services.

After a mystery shopping activity commissioned by Ofcom, changes are being proposed to the Voluntary Code of Practice on Broadband Speeds to try and ensure that accurate information is made available to consumers and ensure that providers are meeting the terms that they committed to on signing up.

The main political parties all accept the importance of securing a strong digital future with super-fast broadband, but each has made vague promises, leaving out some crucial factors that would allow us to hold them to account if they form part of the next government. We see some differences in the plans for how next generation broadband will be funded, in particular the level and timing of government intervention, but we don’t have clarity from any party on both the question of what 'next generation' broadband means in terms of speeds, and how universal will access to this high speed broadband be? In other words, will they guarantee that every single household will get it?

In the budget today, the government has confirmed its previous plans to charge a 50 pence a month levy on all fixed phone lines which is expected to raise £1bn in the next seven years. This money will be used to fund rollout of next-generation broadband to the 'final third' of the UK, areas which wouldn't be able to receive super-fast broadband without government intervention.

In a letter to the Financial Times, leading service providers join academics, an MP and comedian to criticise the Digital Economy Bill and its plans to disconnect file sharers.

The Broadband Delivery UK Group has begin work on providing a minimum 2Mbps universal service across the country as well as manahing the Next Generation Broadband fund.

The Conservative party has suggested breaking up BT and using the television license fee to deliver 100Mbps to the majority of households by 2017.

The European Commission will monitor closely Virgin Media trials on Deep Packet Inspection which may fall foul of EU laws.

Government publishes its thoughts on code to tackle copyright infringement focussing on the stick rather than the carrot.

BT hope that a decision by Ofcom will rule in their favour to force Sky to reduce wholesale pricing of their premium content which will allow them to show Sky Sports and Sky Movies to BT Vision customers.