Category: Regs

UK regulatory posts

Categories
Business internet Regs security

report your terrorist website

The Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has launched a public reporting webpage (on the Directgov website) for terrorist-related material found on the internet.

The public can report URLs of suspected terrorist material direct to a police unit who will investigate. If the website is found to be in breach of the Terrorism Act 2006 the police will issue a Section 3 Notice to have the content modified or removed presuming it is hosted in the UK.

The type of content users may report can be found here on the Home Office website and the reporting page itself here.

As part of the fight against terrorism this must be good though I imagine it will be difficult to maintain an adequate level of publicity for the scheme so that people know where to look to report a website.

Also the savvy terrorist will use hosting provider in a country that doesn’t care or doesn’t have the same laws so unless this initiative was conducted on a global scale it will probably only have a small effect.

Categories
Business engineering internet ofcom piracy Regs

Digital Economy Bill – printer accused of illegal downloads

The cogs of Government continue to grind. I know many of you yawn at some of these regulatory posts but man cannot live on network diagrams alone. The 5th day of the Digital Economy Bill House of Lords Committee stage was held yesterday.

No non-Government amendments made it through but a number of important concessions were made.

Clause 11 in particular concerns “Obligations to limit internet access”. The brakes are being put on this in that no order to cut off someone’s internet access could be made until 12 months after Ofcom has looked at this issue and come up with a Code of Practice.

It is now also proposed that it becomes a requirement, as opposed to an option, for the Secretary of State to request a report from Ofcom on the “suitability of a technical obligation”, ie whether a consumer gets cut off in a particular instance (I assume).

There will also be full appeals process which could be heard by a tribunal before any technical measure is imposed. It will still lead to a pretty messy situation downstream even if it delays the day of reckoning.

Note this is still not backed up by any sign of copyright licensing reform that will make it easier to download music in a legal manner.

There is a lot more to read about but you can do that yourselves here – if you have a few hours to spare and don’t mind finishing up with a headache. Despite all the glamour and the luxury expense fuelled living  🙂 a lot of what MPs do is deadly boring and is reported in such technical legalese as to make it often undecipherable to the “man on the street”.

It is worth noting something else. ISPs regularly receive “abuse” reports from Rights Holders. These letters informing an ISP of supposed illegal downloading activity from one of their customers’ IP Addresses

At last week’s UKNetwork Operators Forum (UKNOF) meeting a representative of Janet, the UK Education network, said that of the ‘abuse’ reports they received last year, 10% turned out to be for the IP addresses of printers, 15% were address space that wasn’t actually being used and 50% only had a 0 second interval for the time that material was being offered for download.

By this token, and I admit only in this anecdotal case, 75% of the supposed illegal activity would never pass scrutiny. This suggests that it is going to be very difficult for anyone to determine the validity of such an assertion by a Rights Holder, be they a judge, ISP or anyone else. There is no way an ISP would want to get involved with this without someone picking up the costs and being fully indemnified.

Categories
broadband Business Regs

Broadband Enabling Technology (BET) Not High in Popularity Stakes, Could Upset the Digital Britain 2mbps Cart

BT today appealed to its partner community for more trialists for their BET service.  Currently in pilot phase,  Broadband Enabling Technology (or BET) uses SHDSL to offer a broadband connection speed of up to 1 Mbps over a distance of 12 Kms from the local phone exchange. By using another line and bonding them together the speed can be effectively doubled up to 2 Mbps.

BT is testing this technology at the following exchanges:
Badsey, Worcestershire
Dingwall, Scotland
Horsham, West Sussex
Inverness Culloden, Scotland
Leyland, Lancashire
Llanfyllin, Powys
Ponteland, Northumberland
Twyford, Berkshire
Wigton, Cumbria
Wymondham, Norfolk

So far there have been around 40 installations which isn’t much across 10 exchanges (cf 1,750 FTTC on 3 exchanges). I’m not sure why there have not been more takers – whilst it is targeted at less densely populated rural areas there must be more people in those areas wanting to get on the internet. The plan is, in theory, to roll out a further 200 exchanges but I don’t think it is a done deal yet with the decision to go to production not yet being taken.

BET has aroused some emotion amongst rural dwellers looking for equality with city slickers in the broadband stakes.  They complain that an up to 2Mbps service (as mooted by the Government’s Digital Britain Review) doesn’t really cut it.  I guess the pressure is going to be on BT to make sure that this service does enter production regardless of uptake. Interesting though.

Timico is not a BET trialist but if you need help with getting on the trials by all means drop me a line and I will point you in the right direction.

Categories
End User internet piracy Regs

The difficulties of licensing music for legal download

In the middle, as we are, of the birthing process of the Digital Economy Bill it is interesting to see how laborious this can be (and I have 4 kids!).

One of the gripes the ISP industry has (regular visitors to trefor.net will have become familiar with a few of them) is the fact that when it comes to copyright protection and the move to kill off illegal downloads there is too much stick and not enough carrot.

The big concern is that the Bill as proposed helps to compensate the music industry for losses incurred to an outdated business model and therefore removes the incentive for rights owners to embrace new business models.

ISPs are extremely frustrated by the difficulties in securing the licensing that is needed to offer consumers legal alternatives to illegal downloading. It has always been our view that a voluntary or legislative commitment to enforcement should only be introduced on the condition that rights-holders also commit to significant licensing reform.

Moreover there is a particular concern that some rights-holders are purposefully resisting reform of the licensing framework because they view legal models of online content distribution as a threat to their own existing revenue.

Lets take a look at some of the difficulties. These are some examples compiled by the Internet Services Provider Association as part of an as yet unpublished paper. There is some brain work involved here though I have tried to simplify it, largely so that I can understand the problems myself.

Existing problems
Taking a fully licensed music service to market is lengthy and onerous. Even if all the rights owners offered easy ways to access their catalogues, the complex contractual obligations wrapped around Intellectual Property rights in the reproduction, performance, and ‘making available’ of both musical works and sound recordings means that there is no guarantee of ending up with a fully licensed service.

Consumer expectations for online music are sky high. Given that many of them share a significant volume of unlawful music over P2P networks consumers are used to being able to download any track. Gaps in the available legal alternatives caused by licensing problems are not well looked upon and legal music services that attempt to offer incomplete catalogues are viewed as uncompetitive when compared with unlawful file-sharing.

Direct licensing or withholding
There are also additional obstacles to efficient music licensing which add cost and risk to the emerging digital entertainment industry.

Rather than using collective or wholesale clearing houses most music rights owning parties insist on licensing the use of their catalogues directly.

This means that direct licensing multiplies cost and difficulty for the licensee and allows each licensor the ability to set terms and rates that could critically damage the viability of a service. Licensors can also choose to withhold the catalogue required to offer a compelling customer proposition.

Ensuring that licensors negotiate through a collective or wholesale clearing house would assist licensees in securing the licenses that are required to offer a service that is attractive to consumers.

Territoriality
Rights-holders are currently able to limit the operations of music services to specific countries which enables them to introduce price discrimination from country to country. Also a single piece of music may well have different owners in different countries which adds cost and complexity to the initial rights negotiations and to the ongoing payment systems.

Advances
The larger rights owners usually demand advance payments and deal and delivery fees. These can be many times the expected royalty payments for the use of the music during the term of the agreement. This introduces a financing risk as well as adding a start-up cost to launching a new service. Often these will be staged as quarterly payments, with the threat of catalogue withdrawal or even insolvency proceedings should they not be met.

These advances are likely to be prohibitive to a provider launching a service. Advances also reduce transparency to other music stakeholders as they break the relationship between sales and royalty payments.

Short-term deals
Many deals have a one-year term with no obligation on the rights holder to renew. This will in almost all cases be considerably shorter than the planning horizon for a large operator and makes a business case more of an act of faith rather than a serious basis to roll out services. It also makes it difficult for a service provider to guarantee that it will be able to fulfil contracts with its own customers.

For example if half way through a one year contract with a consumer a service provider has a certain catalogue withdrawn from its own deal with the rights-holder then that SP is going to be unable to fulfil its own obligations. It could also turn a profitable service into a loss making entity completely outside the control of the service provider if the rights holder decides to jack up the cost.

Minima
Rights owners use contractual minimum payments in order to inflate their revenues over and above the value of the music that is actually sold by a service. In some cases this is relatively benign, such as setting a minimum wholesale price per track and taking the greater of that or a percentage of retail price.

It can, however, be used to set a price per subscriber that is higher than the licensor’s pro-rata revenue share or it can be set across an entire service so that the rights-holder receives a fixed percentage even when their pro-rata share drops. The effect of this is to compel the licensee to pay out over 100% of the royalty pool, eating into margins or operating costs.

Customer proposition approval
Rather than set wholesale pricing and allow operators to develop compelling services, music rights owners seek control over most aspects of the consumer offering and look to insert conditions in contracts that require any changes to be agreed in advance. This would seem to be an anti-competitive measure and detrimental to the creation of alternative models of distribution.

Arbitrary conditions
Rights holders can sometimes put pressure on music services to accept arbitrary conditions, such as using a preferred provider for some aspect of the service, or committing to a guaranteed placement for priority releases. Some other arbitrary conditions might include action against piracy either as a pre-condition of licensing or a commitment included in a contract. It might also include access to a large amount of consumer behaviour data including data that does not relate to the music included in the contract.

All this, and I’m sure the experts can probably dig out more examples, adds up to an extremely difficult environment for the creation of legal music download services.

Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

Lady Gaga and the Digital Economy Bill goo goo.

The Digital Economy Bill will have its third reading in the Lords next week. Thus far each clause has been debated at each reading. It isn’t possible to forecast when it will finish in the Lords – a Bill can have up to 8 readings.

So we don’t have a proper handle on the schedule yet. What is highly likely is that it will be rushed through the Commons with a firm Government Whip. Under normal conditions this would be expected to be a shoe in but it will be interesting to see how many of Labour MPs leaving the House after this election break ranks.

At yesterday’s ISPA Legal Forum the subject of copyright law and the Digital Economy Bill was discussed. The Music Industry claims that legal methods of downloading music are being promoted. It is worth noting that at the event music site 7digital stated that in order to be able to sell some music online (eg Lady Gaga was quoted) they had to negotiate 40 different licensing contracts. Talk about getting bogged down in the goo. This is not consistent with “making it easier”.

Categories
broadband Business Regs

BIS Launches Consultation on How to Spend Money

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills launched a consultation on Thursday on the best way to invest the £1 billion being brought in by the 50p broadband levy. Check it out here.

I did get a bit excited the other day when I read somewhere that Gordon Brown had announced more money to support NGA Broadband rollout.  Upon investigation I realised that it was the money already on the table. A bit of a disappointment but not really a surprise!

What people mustn’t forget that when we say a £billion we mean a £billion over 7 years. They missed a trick here.  Gordon could have announced £2billion over 14 years or 3£billion over 14 years and upped the fifty pence tax to a pound, phased in in seven years time (and so on).

Flippancy notwithstanding it behoves all stakeholders to read the consultation document and respond as appropriate to serve their best interests.

Categories
Business piracy Regs

European Commission wants single regulatory framework for music copyright

As part of the whole Digital Economy Bill/Digital Britain debate one of the complaints being levelled at the music industry is that it makes it too expensive and difficult to make music legally available online at an economic price. 

Part of this is the fact that every country has different copyright licensing laws and channels such as Yahoo, AOL et al find it difficult to negotiate a satisfactory arrangement that would allow them to operate on their international cross border scale. 

The EU has now come off the fence and decided it needsto do something about it and if the Commission gets its way, national collecting societies that manage the rights of online content will have to integrate their systems. Hooray and about time.

You can check out theEurActiv.com piece on the subject here and a more detailed discussion document dating from October 09 here. What I can’t see is any timescale around this so I suspect I might be getting excited a bit prematurely but lets see how it goes.

Categories
Business internet ofcom piracy

Bono sums don't add up.

The BBC reports today that singer Bono is claiming that the revenues lost by the music industry due to illegal downloading mirrors the growth in profits of the Internet industry.

This didn’t sound quite right to me but I doubt that anyone has any real data. It did prompt me to see if I could have a stab at sizing both industries myself from my limited sources of information.

Firstly in last year’s Ofcom communications market report the total number of ADSL tails is quoted as being 17.3 million connections at an average cost of £10.71 a month.  This works out at just over £2.2Bn revenues in 2008.  I realise that there will be other revenues that add to the total ISP take but ADSL will be the biggest portion of the whole. Also I have no doubt that the music industry would quote the total communications market size as the number to compare.

Now look at the available data on the music industry in the UK posted recently in the Times which suggests that turnover in 2008 was, wait for it, just over £2.2Bn.

Whatever the right numbers it clearly suggests that Bono’s claim is just the hype that most people will hopefully see through, or at least MPS about to decide on the Digital Economy Bill.  We are at an important juncture in process of the DEB and it is important that the ISP industry gets its own message across as clearly and successfully as the music industry seems to be doing.  I haven’t been monitoring the relative amounts of press coverage each side has been getting.

ofcom1Finally the chart, taken from last year’s Ofcom market report shows how the media and telecoms industries have been performing relative to the stock market. It suggests to me that the media industry, again assuming the metric is the right one, is not doing so badly, relatively speaking.

I’m quite happy to be corrected with any of the numbers here but we do need to try and get a correct persective on the whole situation.

Categories
Business internet ofcom piracy

Bono sums don’t add up.

The BBC reports today that singer Bono is claiming that the revenues lost by the music industry due to illegal downloading mirrors the growth in profits of the Internet industry.

This didn’t sound quite right to me but I doubt that anyone has any real data. It did prompt me to see if I could have a stab at sizing both industries myself from my limited sources of information.

Firstly in last year’s Ofcom communications market report the total number of ADSL tails is quoted as being 17.3 million connections at an average cost of £10.71 a month.  This works out at just over £2.2Bn revenues in 2008.  I realise that there will be other revenues that add to the total ISP take but ADSL will be the biggest portion of the whole. Also I have no doubt that the music industry would quote the total communications market size as the number to compare.

Now look at the available data on the music industry in the UK posted recently in the Times which suggests that turnover in 2008 was, wait for it, just over £2.2Bn.

Whatever the right numbers it clearly suggests that Bono’s claim is just the hype that most people will hopefully see through, or at least MPS about to decide on the Digital Economy Bill.  We are at an important juncture in process of the DEB and it is important that the ISP industry gets its own message across as clearly and successfully as the music industry seems to be doing.  I haven’t been monitoring the relative amounts of press coverage each side has been getting.

ofcom1Finally the chart, taken from last year’s Ofcom market report shows how the media and telecoms industries have been performing relative to the stock market. It suggests to me that the media industry, again assuming the metric is the right one, is not doing so badly, relatively speaking.

I’m quite happy to be corrected with any of the numbers here but we do need to try and get a correct persective on the whole situation.

Categories
Business internet Regs

Review of 2009

If you have managed to keep a job in 2009 it has probably not been a bad year for you. For consumers, fuel apart, costs have by and large come down as vendors compete more aggressively in the tough market conditions. In the UK we haven’t started paying for it yet. If you have been out of work in 2009 I guess it will have been a different story.

At work Timico continued to grow both in sales and profitability. It hasn’t been easy but the year end looks as if it will be significantly up on last year.

Highlights in the year include decommissioning our last 155Mbps ATM connections to BT, followed later in the year by our 622Mbps pipes. They have been replaced by resilient Gigabit Ethernet Hostlinks.

We also set up our new Network Operations Centre in Newark and saw the successful move of the NetOps team up to Nottinghamshire from Ipswich.

One of the big success stories of the year is the growth in the high bandwidth leased line business. Uncontended (ie dedicated connectivity) leased lines are becoming more affordable and companies are increasing offloading (at least some) corporate resources into the ”cloud”. We have similarly seen a growth in our MPLS estate with some customers signing up for hundreds of connected sites.

2009 also saw some major technology introductions. ADSL2+ was introduced early in the year. The technology is capable of “up to 24Mbps” though we only quote 16Mbps to our customers – most users will not get the max performance and I think it is better to manage expectations in this way rather than have unhappy customers.

Timico was the second ISP in the country to sell Ethernet in the First Mile and have also been participants in the BT Fibre To The Cabinet  (FTTC) trials, the early stage of the much promoted £1.5Bn investment in Next Generation Access technology.

“Digital Britain” was also a much used “buzzword” during the year. It is easy for me to criticise and I realise it is a lot harder when you are making the actual decisions but I am afraid that we will look back and decide that the present Government did not do a good job on this one. The first 4 months of 2010 are going to be very important with laws being passed or not passed that will potentially adversely affect every internet user in the UK.

Don’t get me wrong though. 2010 is going to be an exciting year with lots happening. More tomorrow.

Categories
Business piracy Regs

Canadian Recording Industry sued for $6Bn in musician class-action lawsuit for copyright infringement

In Canada the recording industry has allegedly been witholding payments to musicians for use of copyrighted material and is the subject of a class action (BakerSOC ) that could cost them up to $6Bn.

The problem goes back decades and appears to be the result of a longstanding practice of the recording industry in Canada, described in the lawsuit as “exploit now, pay later if at all.”

It involves the use of works that are often included in compilation CDs (ie. the top dance tracks of 2009) or live recordings. The record labels create, press, distribute, and sell the CDs, but do not obtain the necessary copyright licences.

The defendants in the case are Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada, the four primary members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

The CRIA members were hit with the lawsuit in October 2008, after artists decided to turn to the courts following decades of frustration with the rampant infringement.

It would be interesting to see if the same practice was going on in the UK. If it was it would make a mockery of the attempts of the Music Industry here to drive through the Digital Economy Bill which seeks to cut off the internet connections of people involved in copyright infringement (or “illegal music downloading”).

There’s a lot more detail on the Canadian case in Michael Geist’s blog here.

Categories
Business piracy Regs

Digital Economy Bill Second Reading

The Second Reading of the Digital Economy Bill was held yesterday in the House of Lords. All sections of the Bill were considered, although the main focus was on clauses 4-17 that address copyright infringement. A brief summary is provided below:

  • Lord Mandelson presented the Bill, outlining the two initial obligations on ISPs and explaining the rationale behind the reserve power to impose technical sanctions. He described the clauses as proportionate. Former Cabinet Minister Lord Fowler, responding on behalf of the Conservatives, described the step-by-step process outlined in the Bill as ‘correct’, subject to RHs taking action to make their products legally accessible.
  • On behalf of the Lib Dems, Lord Razzall welcomed the Bill. He did, however, cite a number of sections that the Lib Dems were unhappy with. He requested that clause 6.5(b), which provides for retrospective penalties, be removed. He also questioned the lack of details on the apportioning of costs and the inclusion of clause 17.  He further underlined the need to honour the principles of natural justice.
  • Support for the Bill was voiced by Lord Birt, Lord Puttnam, Baroness Morris (all of whom declared rightsholder interests in this area) and Baroness Howe.
  • Baroness Miller voiced strong opposition to a number of clauses in the Bill. She suggested that the Bill would protect the old model of content distribution rather than encourage new models. She also criticised the decision to make one industry pay for the protection of another and questioned clause 15, which outlines the role of the Secretary of State in defining the level of cost recovery. The Baroness further asked the Government about the effect that increased encryption, which the Bill could cause, would have on the work of law enforcement and cited the threat that the Bill posed to open wif-fi connections.
  • Conservative peer Lord Lucas voiced a number of strong arguments against the Bill. He first questioned the motivation for legislation, explaining that this was protecting music companies rather than artists, and lamented the inability of music companies to offer legal alternatives. He also suggested that it should be compulsory for rightsholders to pursue legal action through the notification system, called for due process for consumers and requested that the Conservative front bench vote against clause 17.
  • Lord Whitty also outlined his opposition to the proposals, questioning the suggested cost to the rightsholder industry, the potential of the user to breach users’ human rights and the lack of focus on education and alternative models of content distribution.
  • Lib Dem Culture Media and Sport Spokesperson Lord Clement-Jones expressed concerns around the power that the Bill granted to the Secretary of State. Conservative Shadow Culture Media and Sport Minister Lord Howard agreed that there would have to be close scrutiny of clause 11 to understand the power being given to the Secretary of State.

At this stage of the game it is difficult to tell how this Digital Economy Bill will pan out because it seems to be getting some degree of qualifed support from all parties at the Second Reading stage.

The debate in full is available here. I understand that the Committee Stage of the Bill will begin on January 6th.  Also I am indebted to the ISPA Secretariat for this input which is mostly a plagiarism of their report.  It is a full time job keeping an eye on this stuff.

Categories
Business Regs surveillance & privacy

Petition Number 10 against P2P legislation

I don’t always agree with Andrew Heaney of Talk Talk but on this occasion he is spot on.  He has distributed a link to a petition at Number 10 Downing Street which reads as follows:

‘We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to abolish the proposed law that will see alleged illegal filesharers disconnected from their broadband connections, without a fair trial.’

The link to the petition is to be found here. I’ve already signed up. There are currently 15,939 signatures but this is early days. Make your voice heard.

PS Less than 1 hour later it is up to 16,991 signatures.

PPS 18.10 hrs up to 20,934 signatures

Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

P2P regulation in Digital Economy Bill ain't going to work

Now that the Digital Economy Bill has been published we can comment on its specifics. and in particular on the aspects relating to what the Government describes as “Online infringement of copyright” or illegal filesharing/Music Piracy in every day language.  It doesn’t just pertain to music, it includes movies and software as well – many of the abuse notices received by Timico in respect of naughty customers are concerned with the latter.

First of all the proposed Bill grants Lord Mandelson far too much control.  The Secretary of State will have the power to make specific recommendations on costs and impose an obligations on ISPs to use technical sanctions. The uninitiated should read this as “telling ISPs how much they will be allowed to charge rights holders for the implementation of the requirements of the Bill.  Technical sanctions = cutting off broadband connections.

In the first instance the industry thinks these responsibilites should be given to an independant body.  Also the idea that ISPs should share some of the cost burden is contrary to the Government’s own legislation – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) (RIPA) – which considers it appropriate for ISPs to be reimbursed for costs incurred when assisting in serious criminal investigations,  such as terrorism or kidnap.

What the Government is saying here that it believes that it is ok to recover costs for assistance with the pursuit of serious criminals but not for costs incurred pursuing an alleged civil infringement on behalf of a commercial interest. A scenario that normally burdens the party with the commercial interest with the cost.

ISPs are happy to help and indeed are not in favour of copyright infringement but think it is grossly unfair that they have to pay to police it.

Secondly the suspension of users’ accounts as a potential sanction is wholly disproportionate and is in direct opposition to the objectives outlined in Digital Britain to increase online participation. It seems that this will enable the suspension of users’ accounts without a ruling from a judge. This is potentially in defiance of the forthcoming EU Telecoms Package that guarantees users’ rights to a presumption of innocence until proved guilty.

The Government seems to be blind to the fact that serious copyright infringers can easily evade detection by employing encrypted P2P (for example).

Instead of wielding a big stick Government should be asking rightsholders to reform the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online to consumers in a way that they are clearly demanding. Currently the online copyright law is a mess spread across many countries and legislatures and the costs to industry of getting it sorted are huge. 

The Government is trying to push this Bill through quickly but it isn’t going to stop the problem. Lift up your heads and raise your voices all!

Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

P2P regulation in Digital Economy Bill ain’t going to work

Now that the Digital Economy Bill has been published we can comment on its specifics. and in particular on the aspects relating to what the Government describes as “Online infringement of copyright” or illegal filesharing/Music Piracy in every day language.  It doesn’t just pertain to music, it includes movies and software as well – many of the abuse notices received by Timico in respect of naughty customers are concerned with the latter.

First of all the proposed Bill grants Lord Mandelson far too much control.  The Secretary of State will have the power to make specific recommendations on costs and impose an obligations on ISPs to use technical sanctions. The uninitiated should read this as “telling ISPs how much they will be allowed to charge rights holders for the implementation of the requirements of the Bill.  Technical sanctions = cutting off broadband connections.

In the first instance the industry thinks these responsibilites should be given to an independant body.  Also the idea that ISPs should share some of the cost burden is contrary to the Government’s own legislation – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) (RIPA) – which considers it appropriate for ISPs to be reimbursed for costs incurred when assisting in serious criminal investigations,  such as terrorism or kidnap.

What the Government is saying here that it believes that it is ok to recover costs for assistance with the pursuit of serious criminals but not for costs incurred pursuing an alleged civil infringement on behalf of a commercial interest. A scenario that normally burdens the party with the commercial interest with the cost.

ISPs are happy to help and indeed are not in favour of copyright infringement but think it is grossly unfair that they have to pay to police it.

Secondly the suspension of users’ accounts as a potential sanction is wholly disproportionate and is in direct opposition to the objectives outlined in Digital Britain to increase online participation. It seems that this will enable the suspension of users’ accounts without a ruling from a judge. This is potentially in defiance of the forthcoming EU Telecoms Package that guarantees users’ rights to a presumption of innocence until proved guilty.

The Government seems to be blind to the fact that serious copyright infringers can easily evade detection by employing encrypted P2P (for example).

Instead of wielding a big stick Government should be asking rightsholders to reform the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online to consumers in a way that they are clearly demanding. Currently the online copyright law is a mess spread across many countries and legislatures and the costs to industry of getting it sorted are huge. 

The Government is trying to push this Bill through quickly but it isn’t going to stop the problem. Lift up your heads and raise your voices all!

Categories
Business internet Regs

Government stuff and the cost to ISPs

I try and keep the content of this blog varied. One of the nice things about my job is that I am able to do this.

One of the recurring themes though relates to regulation.  As a board member of the ISP Association I get a lot of visibility of things going on here.  In fact a huge amount of the value that ISPA provides to the industry lies in the fact that the it does so much work in this area – thus removing the need for all ISPs to be expert. 

It is undeniable however that the regulatory pressure on ISPs is increasing and at some point this is going to start having a serious effect.  This week alone the subjects being discussed in Parliament include the Intercept Modernisation Programme (Big Brother is watching you), Music Piracy, website filtering under the Terrorism Act and Safety Online. I am afraid that in the medium to long term the cost of all this regulation (or proposed regulation) is going to mean that only larger ISPs can cope with it. 

The industry is already struggling with the network upgrade costs associated with increased use of the internet (iPlayer,SkyPlayer, interactive gaming etc etc).  A small ISP with perhaps only two or three thousand customers – and there are many of these – can’t afford the capital expense associated with this. Timico has already made three acquisitions of such ISPs.

Not everybody is fortunate to have the same private equity support and ambition as Timico and I predict that within the next five years the number of UK ISPs will shrink significantly, perhaps to fewer than 50 (from maybe 300 today). I see this as a real business opportunity because in actual fact the market is going to grow. It is just that the barrier to entry will get higher.

Categories
Business internet Regs

1995 flashback

Timico Head of Network Operations Ben has just moved house.  Fourteen years of accumulated “stuff” moved with him including a cutting from the Daily Express he found from 1995.  He was just setting out to seek his fortune in the big wide world and thought he would get into this up and coming thing called the internet.

The 33 ISPs around at that time were offering dial up internet to around 500,000 customers in the and Trade and Industry Select committee chairman Richard Caborn was warning the House of Commons that “many people could be denied access to the information superhighway because much of Britain is not covered by the necessary technology.  Even if the cable companies met their obligations in full it would still leave more than one third of the country without access to a fixed cable network”  he said.

The article could, with a few name changes, be applied to the debate regarding Digital Inclusion going on in UK plc today.

What also struck me was that the pricing has changed very little since then with a range of options not dissimilar to what you can get today.  Speeds have changed of course :-).

Daily Express Guide to the Internet from 1995
Daily Express Guide to the Internet from 1995
Categories
Business internet net neutrality ofcom

UK All Party Comms Group publishes inquiry results

The All Party Parliamentary Communications Group (apComms) is an independent group of MPs and Lords, from all political parties, which seeks to encourage debate on a range of communications issues.

During the summer the group conducted an inquiry into a wide range of internet related issues and made the results public yesterday during the Parliament and Internet Conference.

In my mind this is a significant document which actually proposes to go against Government policy in some areas. I’ve condensed its 43 pages into a few bullet points here.

  1. A recommendation that here should be a green paper on internet privacy. Good.
  2. The Government should not continue with the illegal file sharing idea in Digital Britain but wait for the EU to finish its long awaited  Telecoms Package and fit in with that. Likely to cause a stir but sensible!
  3. Behavioural Advertising – Where are the rights of the citizen? – recommend that on behavioural advertising there should be a far more explicit way for people to understand what they are signing up for. Quite right too.
  4. Internet safety should become a core curriculum topic at ks1 and ks4. Good.
  5. IWF should extend notice and take down to the rest of the world. Gov’t should not legislate to enforce iwf blocking
  6. Keep network neutrality under review
  7. Ofcom regulates to require ISPs to advertise min guaranteed speeds for broadband.   This is currently done under a voluntary code of practice. OK.
  8. ISPs have to take proactive steps to detect and remove illegal content from their servers.  Hmmm.

I don’t think I captured all the points here but certainly the main ones. We will also need to digest what is in the report  and whilst I’m sure not everyone will agree with its content it is certainly a good stimulation for debate. 

The report can be viewed in its entirety here.

Categories
Business internet ofcom

Martha Lane Fox, Queen of the Digitally Excluded

The Government’s Digital Inclusion Champion and my newest Facebook friend, Martha Lane Fox, gave a speech at yesterday’s Parliament and Internet Conference in Westminster.

There is a group of 4 million people, including the elderly and families living on the breadline, who do not have access to the internet and who run the risk of losing out in the digital economy. Moreover the children (20% of families don’t have internet access) face being left behind their education as other children forge ahead with modern life skills.

Aside from her inspirational case studies a few points interesting points arose:

Research suggest that if internet was provided to all families currently without then it would add £10Bn to the economy.

Cost was seen to be the significant barrier to internet access amongst the poor. We were told that these same families would be able to save £300 a year by accessing cheaper products online – if they were able to do so – a tangible incentive.

Earlier in the day Carphone Warehouse strategist Andrew Heaney, in discussing the 50 pence Digital Britain tax on analogue lines, said that CW had estimated that they could lose 100,000 customers as a result.

I put this point to Martha and she agreed that there were conflicting government goals here. On the one hand wanting to reach the digitally excluded whilst on the other hand raising the barriers by increasing prices.

Note I take Andrew Heaney’s comments with a pinch of salt. The former Ofcom executive has very firmly established himself in the anti-regulation camp here – gamekeeper turned poacher!

In walking the corridors of Westminster there is definitely a feeling of the last days of empire. However MLF has a two year remit which seems likely to span different flavours of Government. Her appointment appears non political with support from both sides of the House of Commons and so her role will hopefullybe safe under the Conservatives (should they win the election 🙂 ).

MLF will have to use all her powers of influence and persuasion to make her mark here and we all wish her every success.

To conclude, MP and Communications Group co-chair Derek Wyatt came up with the idea of getting industry to help educate the digitally excluded by providing help with training. This met with the universal approval of the meeting and is an initiative that is well worth everyone’s support.

Categories
Business ofcom Regs

Digital Britain Minister Stephen Timms reaffirms that 2Mbps USO remains on the table

In his speech at the Parliament and Internet Conference in Westminster today Digital Britain Minister Stephen Timms reaffirmed that 2Mbps Universal Service Obligation remains the goal of the Government’s legislation.

Having spent the morning in a workshop with Andrew Heaney of Talk Talk and Andy Carter from the Department of Business Innovation and Skills I had grown disappointed with the progress of the USO concept introduced by Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report.

People had been telling me that USO was now USC – C for commitment. This was confirmed today. What’s more there was no guarantee of 2Mbps on the table they said. In fact there didn’t appear to be a minimum speed guarantee at all! I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that the whole thing was a political con.

Then, talk about a roller coaster conference, Stephen Timms in his speech told us that no, 2Mbps remained the minimum speed people should be getting, and indeed it was an “Obligation”. He confirmed this when I asked the question from the floor.

This is a clear steer from Government here and is in fact an example of the clarity being sought by Ofcom CEO Ed Richards in his own speech earlier in the day.

So there you go you doubters everywhere! Unless the Government changes its mind, 2Mbps is what rural dwellers and the digitally deprived townies will be getting.

Of course the real debate is whether 2Mbps is enough. MP Derek Wyatt suspects it isn’t. We are about to see 3D video games and TV channels which will run over broadband connections.

Categories
Business internet ofcom Regs

Digital Britain high on the agenda at Parliament and Internet Conference

Another busy week in prospect. Tomorrow I’m off to Muswell Hill to test some routers we are considering using for the FTTC trials. Wednesday I’m doing a Hosted VoIP demo at the Convergence Summit South in Sandown Park and finally on Thursday it’s the Parliament and Internet Conference at Portcullis House in Westminster.

You should take note of the latter.  Posts on Parliamentary meetings seem to attract a lot of interest/blog visits long after the event itself has finished. In a sense there is a market for blogging non-stop on this subject. In my book it would make writing the blog a bit boring though.  Order, order!

Anyway this year’s conference has ’em all: Stephen Timms (Minister for Digital Britain and erstwhile commenter on trefor.net),  Ed Richards (Ofcom) and Martha Lane Fox (the Government’s Digital Inclusion Champion). Lesley Cowley of Nominet is also speaking.

I’m genuinely excited about this year’s event.  With Digital Britain high on everybody’s agenda the conference includes a workshop suggested by yours truly on whether 2Mbps is an adequate target for USO.

If you haven’t already got your name down you are probably too late.  All seats have gone.  If you are going I look forward to seeing you – tap me on the shoulder and say hello. 

Footnote:  “Blazing the Digital Britain Trail from Muswell Hill to Westminster “.   A  pioneering new adventure based somewhere on the wild wild web.  Read all about it on trefor.net.

Categories
Business internet Regs

Mandatory IWF support law dropped

I understand that the Government is likely to drop plans to force ISPs to support the Internet Watch Foundation’s child abuse website filter.

This is something that most consumer ISPs support our of their own choice. It is reckoned that 99% of all consumer broadband connections are prevented from accessing sites that promote child abuse/pornography. Someone had decided that mandating this was a vote winner. It is of course but the amount of effort that has to be put into making a new law is, in this case disproportionate to the benefit. ie making sure that that final 1% of broadbands get covered.

The technical solutions used to perform this filtering do not ensure 100% cover and a determined sicko could quite quickly work out how to circumvent the system.

Another storm weathered.  Regulation = increased cost. Try selling that to the customer. Previous post comment here.

Categories
Business internet net neutrality Regs

Net neutrality governance debate

Interesting online debate next week concerning whether Net Neutrality can be “governed”. Although it is a North American debate I imagine it will cover lots of areas that we in the UK should be interested in. If I can fit in the time I will attend. Details here and below:

“FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has expanded from four to six the principles of freedom associated with Net Neutrality. Now however these principles are now going to be codified into regulatory rules. So the question has to be asked can the concept of “open” be governed. Join us as we look at how these principles will be incorporated into policy. What companies, services and devices will be subject to these rules. And discuss if the jurisdiction of the FCC has to be modified to enable these principles.

Participants include: Todd Daubert of Kelley Drye, Hank Hultquist of AT&T and Rick Whitt of Google.
Join us on Tuesday October 6th, 2009 at 12:30 EST to 1:30 EST as we see if Open can be Governed”

Categories
End User piracy Regs

Government P2P plans could cost broadband users £365 million a year

In its response to the Government’s consultation on Music Piracy BT has stated that the three strikes approach may cost each broadband user £24 a year (up to £1million a day in total). This represents what BT thinks may be the cost of implementing the legislation and which it might find itself having to pass on to its customers. It would likely be the same (if not more) for all ISPs. It makes the proposed 50p tax on phone lines pale into insignificance. There should be no doubt that it is a tax.

Actually I’m not in principle against raising taxes to spend on the roll out of a national fibre network. It’s just that 50 pence is inadequate. We would all better spend this money on the fibre roll out.

There is clearly a lot of politicking going on in what is the run up to the next general election. The Government is looking for quick PR wins. If it is not careful this is one that is going to come back to bite.

I read the BT position in the Daily Mirror. I obviously have a wide range in tastes when it comes to literature 🙂

Categories
broadband Business Regs

#digitalbritain Under the Aegis of BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT

It’s worth taking a look at this blog post at media140.org. It contains part of a talk given by @cyberdoyle, a regular commenter on trefor.net at a session on #digitalbritain at the Royal Society organised by BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT . @cyberdoyle quite rightly maintains that the BET solution for broadband over long copper lines is inadequate.

The real point that is being hugely missed by Government and which I have mentioned more than once is that 2Mbps is totally inadequate as a speed for a Universal Service Obligation for broadband. Others quote 40Mbps or more as being where it should be. I believe we should be pitching for 1Gbps. If this is not achievable short term then if we lay the national corporate fibre infrastructure then it will be doable sooner rather than later by upgrading the equipment at either end of the fibre.

Categories
Business datacentre internet ofcom

Video Streaming Regulation: Is Ofcom Going after YouTube?

This may be something that has been going on for sometime in the background, but Ofcom today launched its consultation into regulation of video on-demand (VOD) services.

Following the Audio Visual Media Services Directive, the Government is to regulate VOD services which are ‘TV-like’. The consultation is looking at whether the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) should regulate advertising in VOD services and is proposing that VOD services be regulated by the Association for Television on Demand (ATVOD).

The regulation will consist of a range of minimum content standard, new VOD rules delivered through a co-regulatory framework,  and Ofcom will be given primary responsibility to ensure the effective operation of the co-regulatory framework.
VOD regulation has to be in place by December 19 and Ofcom is seeking views by October 26.

I did wonder whether this meant that Ofcom would be trying to regulate the likes of YouTube. The consultation document does tell us that whether a service is in scope for regulation is defined by a range of criteria, including: whether the principal purpose of a service is to provide “television-like” programmes, on an on-demand basis, to members of the public; whether such a service falls under UK jurisdiction for the purposes of regulation; and whether the service is under a person’s “editorial responsibility”.

I suspect that YouTube falls outside of the UK for jurisdiction but this might not be the case in my mind if a specific video was stored on servers based in the UK. I don’t know where specific bits of the YouTube cloud are but it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that some of it could one day be in UK datacentres. Looks like another potentially messy situation to me.

PS I note that my post titles are getting more and more tabloid-like and sensationalist. I rely on my friends to tell me when it is getting out of control 🙂

Categories
broadband Business internet online safety piracy Regs

UK Government Efforts ISP Regulation Gets Opposition from Unexpected Sources

There has been a lot in the press recently regarding Government plans to regulate the ISP industry. ISPs have been vociferous where they consider that this regulation is unnecessary and adds cost burdens that will have to be borne by consumers.

Quite pleasingly other industries which the Government is likely to think would be the beneficiaries of the legislation have also come out against it.

For example the high profile “three strikes” approach to Music Piracy whereby persistent file-sharers have their broadband cut off is attracting a lot of opposition from the music industry itself. The BBC reports:

Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien, a member of the Featured Artists’ Coalition (FAC), said: “It’s going to start a war which they’ll never win.”

Feargal Sharkey’s UK Music allegedly has a war chest of up to £20 million a year to lobby Government on the subject of ISP regulation. This FAC stance seems to be clear disagreement within that industry.

The leak in the Independent this week that the Queen’s Speech currently is planned to propose mandatory blocking of consumer broadband connections for child abuse images has also created a bit of a stir.

The vast majority of consumer broadband connections already have such screening and it seems that the Government is trying to make political capital out of a subject which everyone will of course support in principle.

The issue is how much effort and money will it take to cover the last few consumers not already “protected” particularly as it is smaller ISPs who are most likely to be affected. This is particularly relevant considering that all we are not talking about stopping hard core child abusers who already know how to get around the blocking.

The Register has come out with an interview on this subject with Jim Gamble, Chief Executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), and effectively the UK’s leading investigator of online child abuse who has come out against legislation in this area.

There is potentially a lot more regulation in the pipeline. Somewhere in a Government office near you someone is plotting to gain more control ever our every day lives. It is at least nice to see that there are people out there with some common sense who are willing to stick their hands up and say “this is not right”.

Categories
broadband Business ofcom

The Demise of Fixed Broadband

A lively time is being had today at the BT Wholesale ISP Forum. The ISP world is fast moving and with so many changes going on – the move from ADSL Max to 21CN, the introduction of Fibre To The Cabinet, Ethernet in the First Mile – there are always lots of things to talk about.

We had a market presentation given by John Kiernan of the BT Market Research department.  This was largely a regurgitation of this year’s Ofcom Market Report but he also spoke about the move away from fixed broadband to mobile broadband. During the debate from the floor someone mentioned that at the Broadband World Forum in Paris yesterday the talk (presumably by the wireless network operators) was that  wireless broadband was expected to kill off fixed broadband by 2012.

I can’t see this happening in the UK anytime soon although I’m sure that wireless broadband is going to have a big part to play – I use it myself on the move.  Consumers especially are getting more and more tied in to bundles that include their fixed line, TV and broadband. Also fibre brings the potential to provide much faster speeds than are being discussed with wireless broadband (and I know that someone will now tell me you can get Gigabit wireless).

What does concern me is the increase in the pollution of the airwaves which will come with more and more wireless.  I realise we are told it is safe but…

Categories
broadband Business ofcom

BSG (Broadband Stakeholders Group) Heads North to Talk COTS (Commercial, Operational and Technical Standards)

I suspect this post title is gobbledegook to some readers. I’m continually having to learn new acronyms myself.

COTS in this case stands for Commercial, Operational and Technical Standards for Independent Local Open Access Networks. It is the latest initiative by the Broadband Stakeholders Group to promote a standard approach to the delivery of the plethora of ad hoc networks that are going to be springing up in the UK in the wake of Digital Britain.

This is to be applauded and on Thursday 3rd of September the BSG is visiting Hull to hold a town hall meeting (it is literally in Hull Town Hall) with the citizens of the North who have felt very much left out of the debate on how to make rural broadband a reality.

The day is split into a colloquium in the morning with the actual COTS meeting starting at 1.30. The COTS agenda is still fluid but an outline is shown below.

COTS Project overview (BSG, 15-20 minutes)

Stakeholder panel (5 mins each)
Ofcom
KCOM – Guy Jarvis,
Fibrestream – Lindsey Annison
INCA – TBC

Discussion – topics

General discussion on the concept

Are we on the right track? Right objective, right diagnosis of the issues?

The scope of the work

Are the three elements right? Should we focus on particular issues? Anything else we should consider?

Initial thoughts on requirements

What do participants need a solution to be able to do?

Thoughts on the commercial, operational and technical requirements

Views on solutions

Blue sky thoughts, to put ideas forward

Views on the process

Any issues with how we plan to take this forward?

Thoughts on the steering group

Views on membership/composition

Role/remit, how it should operate

The meeting is free to attend. I’d go myself but have a prior appointment in London. I’m sure Lindsay Annison will provide me with some feedback.

Categories
Business ofcom Regs

Is Ofcom advocating slamming?

Came across some advice on the Ofcom website today. Entitled “Keeping customers connected” this new note  tells you what to do in case your Communications Provider goes out of business.  I’ve pasted some of the salient points in here:

“If your supplier does go out of business, one of two things should happen.

For phone customers:
(1) You may get a phone call from another telephone company saying that your current provider is going out of business and you need to place an order with another company. They will often give you a deadline by which you need to have switched.”

Later the document advises:

“If any of these things happen, it is better to take action than to wait and hope”

The note covers your phone line and broadband connection though I’ve only reproduced the phone line advice here. The point is that this is verging on encouraging slamming where phone lines are taken over without someone’s consent.  In this case Ofcom is suggesting that people succumb to a pressure sell which is of course the exact opposite to what might be considered normal advice and is indeed why there is usually a cooling off period in many contracts.

I was the victim of slamming myself years ago when Mercury was trying to grow market share.  I was rung by some oik in the sales department who sounded like he had been brought in from their used car sales division and who did not come close to convincing me that I should switch suppliers.  A couple of weeks later I got an invoice thanking me for the business.  The oik clearly had aggressive targets.  Nothing has changed but I would say that in this case Ofcom is not helping matters.

PS Clearly ofcom does not go about advocating slamming but I wonder whether this note has been properly thought through?