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

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
11:00 – 12.05   Policy & BDUK update – Adrian Kamellard
12:05 – 12:15   Session roundup and comments – Ed Vaizey
12:15 – 13:15   Lunch
13:15 – 14:15   Industry Exercise – Matt Agar
14:15 – 14:45   Infrastructure Paper – Simon Towler
14:45 – 15:00   Coffee
15:00 – 16:00   Superfast broadband pilots – Adrian Kamellard

This is a hot ticket with far fewer places than people wanting to go. Part of me is a little sceptical of this – I suspect a lot of people will just be there because of the prospect of a trough to stick their snouts in.

Having said that there is clearly a serious purpose to this day as is witnessed by the seniority of the speakers. For UK plc and the broadband impoverished dwellers of the Final Third (BT has considered it only worth investing in NGA for 66% of the populace) it might almost be considered to be a matter of life and death. Certainly life and death of their communities.

Let’s hope that BDUK is successful.

Unfortunately the track record of public organisations in delivering technical projects in this space is not good. Witness my own county of Lincolnshire where around £15m of EU money was scattered liberally on a wireless broadband project only to be blown away by BT when then realised that the whole project was going to be uneconomic beyond the initial subsidy phase. End users were being asked to pay £250 a month (plus VAT) for a symmetrical 2Mbps service! That was £15m down the pan.

I am not sure that any public money should be spent on this type of project and certainly not given to BT which is quite naturally only there to serve the interest of its investors.

We should be concentrating on helping communities in the Final Third to help themselves. Take Ashby de la Launde for example, again in Lincolnshire, where the villagers have reduced the costs of their NGA roll out by digging their own trenches for the fibre conduits. It remains to be seen how successful this project will be – it goes live in September – but it is an example of how to go about it.

If the government can do anything it should be to help make it easier for communities to get NGA up and running for themselves.

Rather than spending moneys up front the government should be providing tax incentives and reducing the rates burden on private investors providing infrastructure to these communities. All after the fact benefits that would help with up front investment decisions.

Jeremy Hunt is today announcing three Market Test Pilots. I sincerely hope that these are driven by third party commercial interests, or by the communities themselves and not simply by dangling money in front of anyone who wants to take it to implement a Public Sector devised plan. I’m sure that we will find out as we work its way through today’s agenda.

A little more information, though not much, is available on the BIS website here.

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

The Act, as we all know, was rushed through with outrageous haste as the last gasp of a dying government. The issue will be whether, in the rush for the door, the government made any mistakes in process that could invalidate the Act. This would mean that Parliament would have to start the whole process again.

There is clearly no desire on the part of the present government to revisit the Act although if the review did find any transgressions they would have no choice. I imagine if the review did uncover an issue a head might roll in the civil service – the politicians’ heads have already been lopped off for unassociated reasons.

How long a Judicial Review will take is also in my mind an issue. It wouldn’t surprise me if this lasts into next year by which time much of the damage, in terms of costs having to be incurred by ISPs, will already have been done.

The picture below is me with Feargal Sharkey at last night’s ISPA Awards. Feargal gave a speech and expressed the sentiments that two industries (ISPs and music rights holders) need to get the lawyers out of the equation and get on with the job.

Unfortunately the lawyers are already gathered firmly around the trough, are chomping away to their hearts’ content and won’t be shifted in a hurry.

Tref shaking hands with CEO of UK MUsic Feargal Sharkey at the ISPA Awards

PS I get to meet al the celebs – check out me and David Beckham here.

Additional news later on Friday – BT and TalkTalk press release here.

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.

Tom Watson went against his own party’s whip on a matter of high principle and unlike many of the tame politicians that came out of the parliamentary woodwork (bars) to support the Bill at the final vote.

It was clear by then that all most MPs were concerned with was getting re-elected and not sticking their head above the parapet. Had some of them, now no longer favoured with an electoral majority, taken Mr Watson’s stance they might still be MPs.

An interview with our Hero will appear at a later date. I wrote this post in advance having been on the selection committee for the Award and therefore knowing the winner. At the time of publication I will be celebrating with him.

Work on the Code of Practice for the Digital Economy Act continues at its unrealistically frenetic pace.

Internet Villain was Lord Mandelson for introducing the Bill in the first place. He did not reply to our invitation to attend the Awards. Lets not talk any more about him.

Footnote – Tom Watson was unable to make the Awards but Eric Joyce MP, also a DEAct opponent, accepted it on his behalf.

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.

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.

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.”

I’m not really criticising Ed Vaizey. He is a professional. From a technical perspective though that isn’t a definition.

Mr Vaizey went on to answer a question by Andrew Percy MP regarding the UK’s plans to expand the provision of broadband in rural areas. We just have to get on with this but we also need to stop messing about with the idea that 2Mbps is a sensible interim step. It is a complete waste of time.

You only have to look at what is happening with Fibrestream in Ashby de la Launde. Fibrestream is putting 100Mbps FTTP into the village. The project is viable because the villagers themselves are doing most of the digging. It can be done.

I’ll be posting more on this project but in the meantime you can catch the video on YouTube here. You can also read Ed Vaizey’s answers online at Hansard here.

PS It’s the Ashby De La Launde Fete this weekend.  I’m going.  See you there?

They are also talking about applying the Data Retention Directive (Directive 2006/24/EC) to search engines.

I’m all in favour of catching paedophiles but sometimes I wonder whether those that live in their ivory towers, serviced only by regular visits of the gravy train, really know what the real world is all about.

Actually having stared at the doc I still don’t really understand what they are saying. I presume this is filed in the cabinet reserved for straight bananas. Also the mind just boggles at the potential use of food safety technology. What type of labeling are we talking about here???

On a serious note this document is somewhat on the vague side. The problem we have with encroaching government is that once precedents have been established with using a technique to tackle one problem it is very easy for “Authorities” to think it a good idea to apply the same method with dealing with other less pressing issues (eg misuse of RIPA by local authorities).

In the UK at least the coalition government is pulling back from stupid complexity and regulation.

Technical Note – whilst assessing the proposals in the Written Declaration, it is important to take into account that a Written Declaration is not an actual piece of policy.

The main purpose of  a Written Declaration is to raise awareness on an issue. Once a Written Declaration is signed by the majority of the MEPs (368 signatures) it is forwarded to the President of the European Parliament, who announces it in plenary and forwards the document to the institutions named in the text (in this case the Commission and Council). An adopted Written Delcration can become the official position of the European Parliament but the Commission and Council are not required to act upon a Written Declaration.

The deadline for getting the majority of MEPs to sign the Declaration is September 19, 2010. Currently the Written Declaration has 324 signatories.

If it was as simple as that we might be able to come to some arrangement but of course it isn’t.

The BIS consultation on Costs under the Digital Economy Act is not scheduled until October 2010. Work is going on now to prepare for this and yesterday Ofcom held a meeting with ISPs to take on board their views on the subject.

It was not a happy meeting. Ofcom has been given what is known in rugby parlance a hospital pass. The regulator has job that it cannot perform to anyone’s satisfaction.

ISPs will by January 2011 have to have systems in place that support the notification to their customers of alleged copyright infringement and the storage of the data associated with this.

Based on gut feel I would expect this to be a 9 – 12 month kind of job, and that was once the specification had been agreed and understood.

The spec for this job is not known and won’t be known until we understand how many notifications have to be processed. Rights Holders are not apparently obliged to report on their forecast numbers until two months before the notification process needs to begin.

Ergo impossible job or as Mr Micawber¹ would have put it – result misery.

All seven ISPs initially affected by the Act were at the meeting, including I’m told the Post Office, together with some smaller ISPs who are painfully aware that their turn might come in a year’s time.

The Post Office is in my mind an interesting case. Correct me if I am wrong but I think they are a straight white label operation using BT Wholesale as a supplier. The costs of developing a system will be even more in their case as they will likely have to involve BT.

Also I would imagine that most of their customers are of the blue rinse variety (ahem sorry if I got that one wrong – if so someone needs to stamp it out straight away) – in other words of the pension collecting demographic. I doubt that they have many copyright infringers amongst their customers compared with some of the others. Probably all their downloaded stuff is already out of copyright (ok stop that right now).

There is therefore a scenario where Rights Holders will initially focus on a subset of the 7 ISPs with the highest number of (alleged) infringers.

We may end up with the situation where 7 ISPs are asked to develop systems to process CIR notifications with the distinct possibility that not all of them will be asked to issue any notices, at least initially. We don’t know because we don’t have the numbers.

This makes it even more important that ISPs get plenty of advance notice on these numbers. Their capital expenditure plans for this year will be up the spout whatever happens.

People need to get on to BIS to complain here. It is clear that the schedule defined by the DEAct is unworkable.

On an administrative note Ofcom’s Qualifying costs will be allocated on a fixed percentage (75% to 25%) between qualifying RHs and ISPs. Individual ISP shares will be determined according to the projected volumes of CIRs to be received in a notification period. A qualifying ISP that is not due to receive any CIRs in a notification period doesn’t have to contribute to the qualifying costs.

The fixed fee that RHs have to pay to ISPs to cover notification costs will be set by using an efficient operator’s costs as guidelines. Ofcom will commission a study to determine this efficient operator’s costs. Fieldwork will take place between June and August and cover the qualifying ISPs and ideally one or more Mobile Network Operators and smaller ISPs.

PS I have already had one consultant on the phone regarding this commission. My rates are in my mind wholly reasonable if anyone else wants to arrange a meeting.

PPS it seems fair and sensible to me that ISPs outsource all the system development required here to an Ofcom managed consortium which can then pass 75% of the set up costs on to the RHs.

¹ David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

There isn’t much time for the industry to respond here and I’m certainly not in a position to give it a comprehensive review after 10 minutes of scan-through reading.

A few points do immediately jump out of the page at me though.

As previously reported the initial Code is only going to apply to ISPs with 400,000 or more subscribers. Ofcom considers that his will cover 96% of infringers.

These ISPs’ regulatory types are going to have the delay their holidays this summer. They only have 8 weeks to comment. All this we already knew of course.

What does hit home is the amount of system development work these larger ISPs are going to have to do to guarantee the integrity and accuracy of the whole process.

So the costs to the industry are already starting.

Ofcom does not attempt to discuss either the enforcement and appeals process or the costs appropriation. These are due for consultation in August (4 months) and October (2 months) respectively.

There is some overlap for some of these consultations because the outcome of one could influence the response on another. In an ideal world these consultations would all be sequential.

Government action is required to facilitate cost apportioning. The Statutory Instrument for this is needed in the July timeframe. When does Parliament break up for its 3 month holiday?

Under section 124K (2) of the 2003 Act, Ofcom is required to appoint an independent person to determine subscriber appeals. Also 7.3 The notification procedure proposed in the draft Code ensures that a subscriber’s identity is not disclosed directly or indirectly to a Copyright Owner without the express written consent of the subscriber.

It will be interesting to see how an appeals process could be undertaken whilst preserving the anonymity of the subscriber.

The Copyright Infringement Reports (CIRs) must provide details of the infringement and should provide both the start and end time of the period during which the evidence was gathered. Currently these notices from Rights Holders only provide a single timestamp. The notices will have to change from their current format.

It also appears that subscribers will potentially have only 4 weeks between a first and second CIR notification. I’m sure that this will be clarified during the consultation on Disputes and Enforcement. The obvious question is whether this is enough time for an appeals process to work.

Grounds for appeal include a claim that the act constituting the apparent infringement to which a CIR relates was not done by the Subscriber and the Subscriber took reasonable steps to prevent other persons infringing copyright by means of his/her internet access service.

This is the most contentious bit and relates to the fact that the Subscriber is effectively guilty until they can prove themselves innocent. Also what might constitute “reasonable steps”?

It’s going to be a busy summer for all concerned. I wonder whether Lord Mandelson is planning any more lunches aboard yachts. At least he is no longer in power.