Archive for the ‘regulatory’ Category
Monday, August 23rd, 2010
A week is a long time in politics but politicians seem happy to take most of the summer off. I have just had a 2 week break where I avoided anything to do with work and even kept away from blogging. The latter involved a huge effort because there is so much going on internet-wise.
This emotional pull was made more stressful by the fact that news is disseminated and commented on so quickly these days that to write about something that is more than a day old is to be seen to be writing about a historical event and not a current hot topic.
Fortunately last week’s Google news has spilled over into this week and I am back in action. This news concerns Google and its supposed pact with Verizon regarding Net Neutrality – both companies support the idea of an open net for fixed line services but with loopholes for mobile traffic and for some specialized content.
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Tags: google, net neutrality, Verizon
Posted in General, regulatory | 4 Comments »
Sunday, August 15th, 2010
Last week the Valuation Office Agency put out revised guidelines for assessing rateable values for fibre connections.
There is no change at the high end so the likes of Virgin and BT will remain unaffected. However at the smaller network end of the scale there has been a massive price hike.
In 2005 if you were running a pair of fibres over 1km you would be stung with a rateable value of £280. In 2010 this has now shot up to £2000. This will not of course affect BT because they have a negotiated total rateable value for their network.
The upshot of this is that at a time when industry has been crying out for a level “rates” playing field the VOA has made it an even more unequal commercial battle in favour of the large incumbent operators.
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Tags: Big Society, digitalinclusion, Ed Vaizey, fibre rates, VOA
Posted in internet, regulatory | 6 Comments »
Friday, July 16th, 2010
Here is an article written by Trefor Davies and Louise Lancaster in the Institute of Telecoms Professionals’ Journal and published this month.
It covers a bit of the history of VoIP technology, where it has evolved to today and some current issues such as number porting and naked DSL.
vol4_p2_26-32
For more information on the ITP you can visit their website at www.theitp.org/journal
Tags: Naked DSL, number porting
Posted in VoIP, regulatory | No Comments »
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) is today holding an “industry day aimed at companies and organisations that have skills, capabilities and assets that they believe could be used to help deliver the government’s Universal Service Commitment and superfast broadband market testing projects”.
The agenda for the day, which is being held within the BIS offices at 1 Victoria Street, London is as follows:
09:30 – 10:00 Registration & Coffee
10:00 – 10:10 Introduction and Welcome – Ed Vaizey
10:10 – 11:00 Setting the context – Jeremy Hunt
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Tags: Adrian Kamellard, BDUK, BIS, Ed Vaisey, Industry Day, Jeremy Hunt, Simon Towler
Posted in broadband, internet, regulatory | 5 Comments »
Friday, July 9th, 2010
Much in the news yesterday was the request from BT and TalkTalk for a judicial review into the Digital Economy Act. Nobody I spoke to from the ISP industry had any further details of this other than to say that Sky and Virgin were notably absent from the story line.
This is likely to be because the latter two are far more closely aligned to the content provision industry with BT and TalkTalk being really just (or largely in the case of BT) connectivity providers.
People should not get too excited at the prospect of a Judicial Review. This is just a process of checking to see that the legal process was followed. Did it receive the required number of readings in Parliament? etc.etc
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Tags: BT, Feargal Sharkey, ISPAs, Judicial Review, TalkTalk
Posted in internet, piracy, regulatory | 1 Comment »
Friday, July 9th, 2010
2010 ISPA Internet Hero Tom Watson MP
At tonight’s Internet Services Providers Association (ISPA) Awards Labour MP for West BromwichTom Watson was announced as the Internet Hero for 2010. This is just a bit of fun at the one time in the year that the ISP industry lets its hair down, but it does have its serious side.
The work that Tom Watson did in opposing parts of the Digital Economy Bill was highly creditable. He stood up for human rights and fairness. It shows that Members of Parliament do have a conscience and are willing to speak out when that conscience troubles them.
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Tags: #deact, @tom_watson, debill, Eric Joyce, Internet Villain, ISPA Internet Hero for 2010, Lord Mandelson, MP
Posted in internet, regulatory | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
On 25th May Julian Huppert MP tabled an Early Day Motion calling for the repeal the Digital Economy Act 2010. To date only 34 MPs have supported it!
It is hard to see what we can do to raise the profile of this issue, other than by continually banging on about it. We may have to wait for some high profile failures of the process, by which time of course the ISP industry will have spent a fortune implementing the systems required under the Act.
In the words of the EDM “large repercussions for consumers, civil liberties, freedom of information and access to the internet”
The suffragettes used to chain themselves to railings and throw themselves under horses. This is not worth losing a life for but there must be a way.
Posted in internet, regulatory | 2 Comments »
Friday, June 25th, 2010
It was startling to read in the Daily Telegraph that UK Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said he would be scrapping three quarters of the Government’s 820 websites. You can read the article for yourselves but it is amazing how much some of these sites cost per visit.
The most expensive websites were uktradeinvest.gov.uk which costs £11.78 per visit and businesslink.gov.uk which costs £2.15 per visit.
I did a quick search and the Telegraph seems to the the only site carrying this story. In searching I did find the following A-Z of central government websites. Perhaps we can have some suggestions as to which ones should be first for the chop.
I bumped into a pal a couple of weeks ago who spent some time doing some contract work for a government department. He was incredulous as to the level of ignorance in respect of technology. There were he said projects happening that were a complete waste of time and money. You get the impression of things being done for the sake of being seen to be doing something.
I guess this is a real problem generally for UK plc as is witnessed by the mistakes made in the Digital Economy Act – rushed through in ignorance without proper due diligence.
Tags: #deact, Government, waste
Posted in regulatory | 2 Comments »
Friday, June 18th, 2010
It’s Friday afternoon and the first time this week I have been able to sit down and blog. It could be a full time activity if I had the time as so much stuff passes my way.
I note that Minister for Communications Ed Vaizey has been demonstrating his politcal sidestepping skills by answering MP Tom Watson’s request for a definition of “super fast broadband” with:
“Super fast broadband means broadband of sufficient speed and quality to deliver the services that will lead to Britain having the best broadband network in Europe. The technology used to deliver this could be fixed or wireless but will represent a significant upgrade on today’s fixed and wireless networks.”
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Tags: @andrewpercy, @edvaizey, @tom_watson, Ashby de la Launde, Fibrestream, FTTP
Posted in broadband, internet, regulatory | 1 Comment »
Monday, June 7th, 2010
I had to stare at this for a bit to understand it. In a Written Declaration the European Parliament has called on the Member States to coordinate a European early warning system involving their public authorities, based on the existing system for food safety, as a means of tackling paedophilia and sex offending.
They are also talking about applying the Data Retention Directive (Directive 2006/24/EC) to search engines.
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Tags: data retention, European Parliament, paedophiles, sex offenders
Posted in internet, regulatory | No Comments »
