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Business ofcom Regs surveillance & privacy

Ofcom to get another 3 months to finish #DEAct Code of Practice

At the DEAct conference in London today Rachel Clark, Deputy Director, Communications and Content Industries Dept for Business Innovation and Skills, told us that the deadline for Ofcom to complete its work on the Code of Practice has been put back 3 months to the end of March 2011.

She considered that this was still a difficult deadline to meet but at least it is an admission of the fact that Ofcom has been struggling with the enormity of the task in hand.

Interestingly the meeting comprised around 70 – 80% Rights Holders representatives. I thought this seemed disproportinate but actually only 6 ISPs are seriously being affected in the initial phase. More concerningly is the fact

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broadband Business internet ofcom

Ofcom – Increased Broadband Speeds and ISP Voluntary Code of Practice

Big headliner from Ofcom this morning is that average broadband speeds in the UK have increased by over 25% in the past year. Research, conducted in partnership with broadband monitoring specialists SamKnows, has found that speeds have increased from 4.1Mbit/s to 5.2Mbit/s.

This is no surprise really as ISPs move their base from ADSLMax (“up to 8Meg”) over to ADSL2+ (“up to 24Meg”). It’s a shame that the average is not higher but that’s copper for you. The research showed that cable customers fare significantly better than ADSL.

The Ofcom data also reveals some very interesting stats about performance during peak times that don’t do some ISPs any favours.

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Business internet ofcom piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

Ofcom Draft Code of Practice for the Digital Economy Act #DEAct

Just ploughing through the 73 pages of the Ofcom Draft Code of Practice for the Digital Economy Act.

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.

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Business ofcom Regs surveillance & privacy

Ofcom #DEAct Code of Practice limited to ISPs with 400,000 subs & excludes mobile broadband

ISPA Secretariat met with Campbell Cowie and Chris Rowsell from Ofcom this afternoon to discuss the ongoing work surrounding the DE Act.

Ofcom explained that the Code will look at four areas: process – how a Copyright Infringement Report (CIR) is generated and sent and the notification process; appeals for consumers; dispute resolution between ISPs and RHs; and costs, which BIS will be focusing on.

The Code is due to be published within the next ‘couple of weeks’, though no date has been set. As Ofcom did not anticipate industry to come together and produce an effective code as per the DE Bill/Act, it had been planning what a Code may look like for some time and had not relied on one side of the debate to influence the content.

Due to the short timescales Ofcom has been working to, the Code will be instructional rather than setting out line-by-line what is required. For example, instead of dictating a standard approach for a CIR, those affected will have to tell Ofcom how they will go about it and Ofcom will then approve it or recommend changes.

The Code will initially be limited to ISPs with around 400,000 subscribers – currently 7 ISPs – and not including mobile broadband, but the long-term ambition is to target those ISPs with copyright infringing consumers. So downloaders who migrate to an ISP not included in the soft launch of the Code will eventually be covered as Ofcom follows the traffic. Ofcom has also been tasked with analysing the level of copyright infringement and barriers to innovative and emerging business models and report back to the Secretary of State, and would be actively seeking views on this.

My thanks to the ISPA Secretariat for this feedback.

Categories
Business ofcom Regs surveillance & privacy

Ofcom #DEAct Code of Practice limited to ISPs with 400,000 subs & excludes mobile broadband

ISPA Secretariat met with Campbell Cowie and Chris Rowsell from Ofcom this afternoon to discuss the ongoing work surrounding the DE Act.

Ofcom explained that the Code will look at four areas: process – how a Copyright Infringement Report (CIR) is generated and sent and the notification process; appeals for consumers; dispute resolution between ISPs and RHs; and costs, which BIS will be focusing on.

The Code is due to be published within the next ‘couple of weeks’, though no date has been set. As Ofcom did not anticipate industry to come together and produce an effective code as per the DE Bill/Act, it had been planning what a Code may look like for some time and had not relied on one side of the debate to influence the content.

Due to the short timescales Ofcom has been working to, the Code will be instructional rather than setting out line-by-line what is required. For example, instead of dictating a standard approach for a CIR, those affected will have to tell Ofcom how they will go about it and Ofcom will then approve it or recommend changes.

The Code will initially be limited to ISPs with around 400,000 subscribers – currently 7 ISPs – and not including mobile broadband, but the long-term ambition is to target those ISPs with copyright infringing consumers. So downloaders who migrate to an ISP not included in the soft launch of the Code will eventually be covered as Ofcom follows the traffic. Ofcom has also been tasked with analysing the level of copyright infringement and barriers to innovative and emerging business models and report back to the Secretary of State, and would be actively seeking views on this.

My thanks to the ISPA Secretariat for this feedback.

Categories
Business internet ofcom piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

Ofcom goes quiet on #DEAct Code of Practice

Ofcom seems to have gone very quiet since the initial flurry of consultation meetings following the passing of the Digital Economy Act. This is somewhat concerning in my mind.  Ofcom has to produce a draft Code of Practice by the end of May.

The DEAct is such a contentious subject that the last thing we want is to find  that this CoP is not objective and is bisassed towards one set of stakeholders over another. It is a lot easier to get changes made before the initial draft than afterwards.

It is also hugely important for Ofcom to remain transparent here and it would make sense to me for the regulator to be asked to identify how many contacts and inputs have been had with each set of stakeholders during the compilation of the draft CoP.

Ofcom responsibilites in respect of the DEAct can be found here. There is one meeting planned for 20th May to present these duties. Doesn’t seem to be to do with the CoP subject matter.

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broadband Business internet ofcom piracy Regs

Ofcom Terms of Reference for Tackling Online Copyright Infringement in Digital Economy Act #debill

Check this Ofcom announcement. It basically covers their terms of reference for the Copyright Infringement piece of the Digital Economy Act (was Bill – feels kinda final).

There is going to be a lot written on this between now and the end of the year.  There are no surprises at this stage though the statement does confirm that the process has to take no more than 8 months including 3 months for the Code of Practice to be approved by the European Commission.

The draft CoP also has to be in place no later than May.  There is an option for stakeholders to jointly propose a draft within this timeframe but I can’t see it happening.  I may be wrong.

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Business internet ofcom Regs

Royal Assent for Digital Economy Bill – we now need to move onto the Code of Practice for damage limitation #debill

The Queen nodded the Digital Economy Bill through last night, in keeping with her custom and practice. It seems that MPs have been getting above their station in taking a similar approach to get it passed into Law (my words not Her Majesty’s). 

It would appear that Stephen Timms has offered via twitter to arrange a session between ISPs and the Rights Holders:

“#DEBill Good dialogue, music/film people & Internet people, opposing views,could help find common ground. Much needed. Anyone interested?”

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.