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broadband Business internet

Britain is 25th in Oxford University Global Broadband League Table

Britain is 25th in the global broadband league table according to a Cisco sponsored study performed by Oxford University’s Said Business School. This was one of the headlines that woke me up whilst listening to BBC Radio 4 this morning.

That in itself should be a spur for the UK to get its act together. For the BBC interview, however, Oxford University could have fielded someone  a little more conversant in the issues. The study itself, seen online,  looks to be purely factual but University don Alastair Nicholson seemed to to think that this lowly ranking was not a problem and that our broadband network was perfectly suited to our present needs.

Although this initially incensed me I’ve calmed down now.  Alastair Nicholson, as an academic overseer of some MBA students,  probably has little exposure to the dynamics of a high technology fuelled economy.  He didn’t do the country a favour though by suggesting that the hype surrounding the Digital Britain debate was partly pride and not driven by the absolute need to have faster and more ubiquitous broadband.

He is just wrong. This is extremely short sighted. Build the motorway and the traffic will come. The act of building this information superhighway will create the jobs that will help to dig our way out of recession.

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Business social networking

Digital Britain feed on trefor.net

The Digital Britain feed from twitter is yielding some very interesting information. For example people are tweeting about their submissions for the  funding that is available from the Technology Strategy Board.

It is worth watching the feed for a minute or two to get a feel for what is going on in the Digital Britain initiative. If you hover your cursor over the feed it will stop scrolling and thus lets you control the speed.

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Business internet piracy

Technology Strategy Board Digital Britain workshop

The Technology Strategy Board promotes the development and adoption of new technology, ideas  and applications in the UK. It has been given a pot of money to seed the development of technology that will underwrite the aims and objectives of the Digital Britain report.

The briefing was in London on Friday, the aim being to bring network providers and rights holders together to finalise the specification for the Technology Strategy Board’s Digital TestBed. About £30m is apparently available to spend and I understand that in excess of 400 application forms have been downloaded from their with a likely 80 projects to be chosen to go forward to the “feasibility study” stage.  Some applicants will clearly be disappointed.

Whilst I think that his activity is to be applauded I did hear of one interesting bit of feedback from the day.  The representative from Sony, who presumably was there to discuss ways of making music more easily available online in a legal manner, suggested that if it was licensing models that were up for discussion, he would need to get the lawyers on the case. 

The whole issue of legal online access to music is indeeed all about licensing models. The cost of the licenses basically. I get the feeling that the rights holders aren’t really interested in making this easy or lowering the costs. Once you get lawyers involved things take forever. You can’t talk about licensing without lawyers. ergo it will never happen.

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Business internet

Mandelson U-turn on P2P

The Goverment today did a U turn in respect of its approach to the treatment of illegal music downloading. One of the key features of the Digital Britain review is the fight against music piracy. The ISP industry has been in deep discussion with the music industry over this for at least 18 months and probably more and the outline approach being adopted in “Digital Britain” was something notionally agreed by the various stakeholders.

Today Department for Business has today published an amendment to the original consultation on P2P. The amendment contains proposals to give the Secretary of State the power to introduce technical measures and proposals for the cost to be apportioned in the legislation.  The amendment also reintroduces the idea of suspension of broadband service as a final resort.  This is something that is being opposed in many camps for many reasons already discussed in this blog, not the least being that it is difficult to prove who was doing the downloading.

Although I’m not a lawyer I understand that there is a scenario here that the Government’s own Code of Practice on Consultations has been breached.  The amendment is already causing large ripples in the industry and I think we can expect to hear a lot about this in the press over the next days and weeks. 

There are already reports in the press that this change of mind is rumoured to have been occasioned by a meeting between Lord Mandelson and Music Industry mogul David Geffen during the summer break.  I am all for making things happen quickly.  However it does seem to me that Lord Mandelson is inserting the boot here without enough understanding of the issues.

In my mind he would be better off spending his time trying to raise funding for Rural Next Generation Broadband Access, an aspect of the Digital Britain report that has been widely criticised as being a cop out.

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broadband Business internet Regs

Stephen Timms MP to Become the New Communications Minister

Stephen Timms brings significant telecommunications industry experience to his new Communications Minister role.

I understand that Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP is set to become the new Communications Minister, with responsibility for taking forward the recommendations of the Digital Britain broadband review. The position had been vacated when Lord Carter stepped down following the publication of the Review. It is likely that the role will change slightly, given that Mr Timms will sit jointly across the Department for Business and the Treasury, whereas Lord Carter’s position sat jointly across the Department for Business and the DCMS.

A former Internet Hero at the ISPAs, Stephen Timms brings significant experience to the role having worked in the telecommunications industry before entering Parliament and having previously served as a Minister with responsibility for e-Commerce at the DTI and BERR.

Whether the treasury connection will have any relevance remains to be seen.  I see one of the biggest challenges for this Government is going to be how it faces up to the need to invest massively in the Next Generation Access network (ie fibre).

Whilst I was on holiday I visited my in laws in Liverpool. Grandad had saved me an article from the local paper describing the outcry amongst Liverpudlian councillors when they found that BT’s initial £1,5m investment in Fibre To The Cabinet was not going to be gracing their fair city with it’s presence whilst favouring local rivals Manchester.  Nonsense I cried and reached for my BT FTTC broadband rollout map (never go anywhere without it).

To my surprise, he was right. All the dots identifying the initial (spring 2010) roll out sites come no closer than Altrincham. The good burghers of Liverpool should not feel that they have been singled out, because there will be huge swathes of the UK left out in the high speed broadband cold.  I don’t for a moment blame BT, although I’m sure that competition from Virgin will in due course give them a bit of a prod in the right direction.

This is why I say that the Government has a lot to do in this space, and why I wish Stephen Timms every success in his new role.

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Business internet

NGA funding in Digital Britain can only be a start

Two funding streams have been identified for the 2Mbps Universal Service Obligation and the longer term Next Generation Access  broadband. The 50 pence per analogue line will raise about £180m a year and the diversion of funds from the unused digital TV switchover fund will account for £200m.

I guess my point is that in last year’s Caio Report the NGA network was estimated to cost £29Bn and a large proportion of this would have been spent in areas that currently can’t get broadband and would be in the USO area.. The per line cost of providing 2Mbps is probably not much less than the 40 or 50Mbps talked about in NGA.

So the funding identified for USO can only be a start and there is a scenario where they might just as well go straight for the fast stuff.  It is good that the Government has recognised that the Digital Divide exists but they do need to do more.

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Business internet

Copycats? Digital consumers in the online age.

I woke up Friday morning to a BBC news report claiming that a report had found that there were 7 million people in the UK indulging in illegal file sharing. This was based on a report by the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property and one which I have been looking forward to reading.

The report does in fact make very interesting reading though even the executive summary is fourteen pages long so I’m not going to replicate it all here. This then is the executive summary of the executive summary with bits left out.

Between 44% (USA) and 79% (Eastern Europe) of internet traffic is taken up with illegal file sharing. As a B2B ISP Timico does not see this level of P2P though I can understand why consumer ISPs invest heavily in packet shaping technology.

Up to 7 million people are illegalling downloading music and movies.  With only 2.3 million full time students this must mean that non students are also doing it.

A large number of people assume that they can get such material for free and that they won’t get caught.  This is changing basic assumptions about the idea of ownership,  sharing and copying content and that new business models are needed.

The report also does suggest that industry, ISPs included, need to play their part but recognises the difficult situation that ISPs are in.  If consumers get clamped down on will this change the way they behave generally in using the internet?

All this is good reading in the run up to the publication of the Digital Britain Report in a couple of weeks time. Although I hope I am wrong I increasingly get the feeling that Digital Britain is not really going to come up with any kind of solution to this problem.

Both the exec summary and the full version of the SABIP report can be found here.

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Business media

Rural broadband on the BBC news this morning

The BBC has picked up a rural broadband news item this morning with another community rolling out fibre, this time with a 20Mbps broadband service, presumably with a bigger backhaul than the 2Mbps that serves Wennington and Wray (see posts from 2 weeks ago).

I suspect the media is building up for more coverage when the Digital Britain Report is released in mid June.  There seems to be some disagreement in Cumbria as to the efficacy of the investment already made in the area. Whether individual communities already get coverage or not is somewhat a moot point really.

I think the issue that is quickly going to overtake us is the adequacy of the  “up to 2Mbps” speed being bandied around as a target by Government as a Universal Service Obligation.  Many city dwellers already have access to 40 or 50Mbps and with BT’s Fibre To The Cabinet trials about to start this figure will become very much the standard to aim for, unless you live in a rural community that is.

Whilst BT CEO Ian Livingstone maintains that 2Mbps is good enough for most people’s uses, experience in the Far East, where high speed internet access isn the norm, have shown that people’s online behaviour does change as faster speeds become available. They are more likely, for example, to watch High Definition video online.

This is all going to add pressure to ISPs’ networks but I do believe that the UK is being shortsighted in not considering a ubiquitous Next Generation Access fibre network from the off.

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Business internet

Episode 2 – JFDI – Just Farmers Digging for Internet access

This is episode two of the Lancashire based rural soap opera in which farmers dig for victory in the Battle of Digital Britain and Fibre To The Home. Yesterday’s post attracted a lot of attention which suggests there is a great deal of interest in this subject. 

Note in this acronym infested industry I had never quite understood (I’m an innocent boy from small town Wales) what JFDI meant and obviously kept quiet about it to avoid embarrassment.  Now I realise it stands for Just Farmers Digging for Internet Access! :-).

Looks like there might be a third episode coming along in this video manual on how to lay fibre. NTL et al take note!

It really does feel as if you are there when you watch this video. Good luck to all rural dwellers everywhere.

Categories
broadband Business internet

Farmer Rolls Out First Rural Broadband Fibre Network as Digital Britain Takes Too Long

On the hills high above Wennington in Lancashire the local community is taking its internet destiny into its own hands and is laying broadband fibre.

The Wennington/Wray communities were no hopers when it came to the provision of ADSL so in 2005 they were awarded a £25k grant by the North West Development Agency to roll out a 2Mbps symmetrical mesh wifi network. The initial 12 users charged themselves £25 a month which provided a kitty for further expansion of the network to 22 endpoints.

They are now at the point where the remaining 30 homes/businesses are out of reach of wifi and the only way to get connected is by using fibre.  The YouTube video, hot off the press this morning (thanks to Lindsey Annison for that), shows the first cable run being laid.

This is initially an experiment to get to understand the costs involved before deciding when to add more locations to the network.

The network is a huge boost to the quality of life in the community allowing workers to stay put instead of commuting as far afield as Manchester and Edinburgh.

It is clear from the numbers here where the issue surrounding Universal Service Obligations being discussed in the Digital Britain Report reside. That initial £25k served 12 users –  just over £2k each – which realistically can never hold down a business case based on £25 a month. Being generous that probably would result in £1,500 Gross Margin pa which will never repay the initial investment.

There are problems for the community in increasing the size of their 2Mbps backhaul. A 100Mbps link to Lancaster would cost £76k to install with a £64k pa ongoing cost. This is almost an order of magnitude higher than the same connectivity in large metropolitan areas that would also have many more users at the end of the line.

It ain’t going to happen without Government assistance and I believe that it is key to the economy for UKplc to provide this. Now is the time to make it happen.

Find out more on the Wray village website with thanks to cyberdoyle for the info and  Fibrestream, Lucidos and Optech Fibres who have helped with this initial fibre project.

Check out the promo video of the initial project here.

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broadband Business internet ofcom

interview with Sebastien Lahtinen of thinkbroadband.com

Hard as it may be to believe ADSL has been around in the UK for 10 years or so. In this time we have seen big changes in the industry. Market penetration has reached 58% of households (Ofcom 2008 review) and we are onto our third generation of technology.

Sebastien Lahtinen is known to many as the driving force behind thinkbroadband.com and before that ADSLguide.org.uk. As such he has been at the heart of the UK broadband industry as both an observer and participant since its beginnings.

TD Seb, tell us a bit about how you got into the broadband industry and what inspired you to originally found ADSLguide.org.uk

SL Back in the late nineties I was looking to get onto a cable broadband service but my cable operator Nynex (which became C&W, then NTL and now Virgin Media) wasn’t offering the service in my area. I then heard about this ‘ADSL’ technology and that Demon Internet was running trials in some areas. Whilst I couldn’t get onto a trial myself, John Hunt, a good friend of mine who started the site up with me was able to do so.

I felt that that there was a need for somewhere impartial for users to go, to find out about this new emerging technology. Of course these days, the providers have perfected their support and provisioning systems so our role has slightly changed. We now have to serve a far wider, less technical, user base.

TD ADSLguide.org.uk morphed into thinkbroadband.com. This was mainly because adsl was no longer the only driving technology in this space. Has this made a difference to how the website is perceived/used.

SL There are still people that consider us as an ‘ADSL’ site but we’re working hard to cover other broadband technologies including cable and mobile broadband. Our staff obviously understand the development and background of ADSL technology far better, but we are trying to build relationships with non-ADSL providers so we can offer users the best advice no matter what technology they want to use.

TD What makes thinkbroadband different to all the other comparison sites that now exist?

SL We don’t regard our site as a ‘comparison’ site in that we set it up to provide users with information about broadband generally, not just as a way comparing service providers. You can see this by comparing our front page which is more about news than trying to get you to switch service provider. Obviously, the ability to find a suitable supplier is part of what we do, but it’s by no means the primary role of the site.

The majority of the broadband sites out there (with ourselves and ISPreview.co.uk being obvious exceptions), were set up when service providers started offering commission for websites which referred a customer to them. In fact, this is the business model on which they operate. Some of them even compare insurance, credit cards, etc. as well.

Obviously, we have costs too and we need to ensure we can pay for those big servers that run the speed tests and to employ staff who can help to improve our site, but the major difference between us and most other sites, is we set the site up for the community, rather than as a business, and most of us are still doing this part time alongside full time jobs which pay our salaries.

TD The site has become very popular and this must put strain on your infrastructure. How did you manage the growth?

SL Around the same sort of time in early summer of 2000, I co-founded a hosting business with Jeremy Ainsworth who also got involved in ADSLguide. In fact, our very first server dedicated to serving ADSLguide was a spare box Jeremy had available which we put into Telehouse. We kept throwing more resources at it as it grew.

Our forums too gained their own momentum and we started seeing load issues when Pipex users took over the forums following some heated discussions about their service. David Rickards of Pipex was kind enough to donate a new server to us which helped us grow the forums to the next phase.

We started providing speed tests, and much more and our infrastructure had to grow with that. This is still very important to us to ensure we can deliver the fastest and most reliable speed test services.

TD Since that time what are the milestones that stick in your mind that measure the development of broadband in the UK

SL I think the first key milestone was when BT introduced the ‘wires only’ install which meant you didn’t have to use the ‘Alcatel frog’ (or ‘stingray’ as some people call it) with drivers that didn’t always work and the setup fee dropped from £150 to £50 making the service more universally affordable.

The second milestone I believe was BT’s “Broadband Britain” campaign which encouraged communities to get involved in raising broadband take-up and getting virtually all the exchanged enabled.

The third was the introduction of rate-adaptive ADSL and what we now know as the ‘up to 8 meg’ services. Since then, many other providers have started pushing the speed boundaries with LLU and especially recently Virgin Media on its 50 meg service too.

I believe the next challenge will be bringing those who are currently outside of broadband coverage into the digital world.

TD We are now seeing the Government talking about Universal Service Obligation concerning the provision of 2Mbps broadband to all homes. Do you believe this is practical?

SL We do believe that a USO is absolutely necessary and that the level at which it is set should be reviewed regularly. Our current concern is more for those who cannot get any broadband service, than those who are stuck on say 1Mbps services, as this is a far more fundamental problem that needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. I could probably survive on a 1Mbps connection, but I can’t imagine living ‘without broadband’ at all.

We also have some doubts as to whether it is possible to simplify a USO as just “2Mbps downstream” service.  There are factors such as upstream speed, latency, jitter, etc. that could for example prevent access to next generation telephony service over the Internet which have the potential to revolutionise how we communicate. These don’t make as interesting a sound bite but they are still important.

TD As the internet becomes more important to our every day lives the Government is increasingly seen as becoming involved with decisions that affect the direction of the industry. Do you see this as good or bad and is it inevitable? What are your thoughts on the Digital Britain Report?

SL The Government has an important role in ensuring a regulatory environment which both fosters innovation and diversity of supply, but also protects those who may not have the resources or skills to protect themselves. However, it is important, that in achieving the latter, it does not stifle the former.

The Internet has developed in an environment with very minimal regulation and low barriers to entry, and it is these unique circumstances that have allowed it to develop so quickly. The Internet feeds on the concept of rapid innovation and improvement. One day you launch a brilliant new service; the next, your competitor has outdone you. It’s a bit like a car manufacturer being able to release a new updated model every week.

The way we think and use information since the evolution of the web has changed. We now combine information from different sources in new ways. This is only possible if those with an idea have the means and willingness to execute it. It does however mean re-thinking the way intellectual property rights are protected, both to preserve the incentive for those who work hard to benefit from their efforts, but also to allow for people to take advantage of new technologies without being criminalised.

In my view, the role of the Government is to encourage good practice and getting directly involved only where it is absolutely necessary to protect the interests of the country and its economy. So far, the UK Government has taken a ‘light touch’ approach which has helped us become a key capital at the heart of the Internet.

I suspect that Government will become more involved in the discussion about the future of the Internet as it is so fundamentally linked to the success of the country and the Digital Britain report is evidence of this. We also have to accept that there is a role for an entity to represent the interests of the minority who are unable to use the Internet for whatever reason. It is no longer sufficient for us to cover 99.9%; The Internet should be for everyone.

TD We now hear of talk of 1Gbps fibre to the home in Japan which doesn’t even appear on the long range radar here in the UK. How do you think the UK will fare in the international competitive stakes when it comes to internet technology.

SL The UK has a habit of comparing itself to other countries and being very negative about its position. The fact is, there is very little content on the Internet which can truly benefit from a 100Mbps let alone a 1Gbps connection today. Quite simply, the core Internet infrastructure can’t  cope with delivery this level of service on any scale at a price that most of us would be willing to pay.

I do however have concerns that we aren’t looking at a national fibre network more seriously. Whilst I accept that the needs of the next few years will be met by new ways to push more out of copper (both in ADSL and cable variants) and hybrid fibre-coax/copper solutions, sooner or later end-to-end fibre optic cabling will be needed and it is likely that this will require Government support by way of easing regulation or co-ordinating the efforts of communications providers to build an efficient and competitive network.

The reason fibre makes sense is because information travels along it at the speed of light so its capacity to deliver next generation services is far greater. The fibre optic cabling used to deliver 100Mbps or 1Gbps a decade ago is used to push multiple links of 10Gbps each today and 100Gbps in the not too distant future. It is a technology that is more future-proof than copper.

TD Finally would you care to make any predictions regarding the internet in the UK over the next year or two?

SL I think we will start seeing more new developments receiving next generation broadband services at up to 100Mbps in cities as the costs of linking these back to the data centres (the buildings where the ‘core’ of the Internet is based) is falling.

I also believe that the the much talked about convergence of technologies will start happening, initially with TV-on-demand services being delivered over the Internet to your set-top-box. Eventually (probably a few years later), I think Internet-connected fridges are likely to become more common.

TD Thanks very much for your time Seb.

Categories
Business internet

Digital Britain Summit

At this morning’s Digital Britain Summit in London BT Chief Executive Ian Livingstone argued that there is not enough demand for fibre to the home to justify the cost of rolling it out universally.  He is quoted as saying “Of course a Ferrari is faster than a Ford, but most people are happy with a Ford.”

It has to be said that this is in huge contrast to his predecessor Ben Verwaayen who took the bold move of investing in a countrywide rollout of ADSL despite the apparent lack of a business case for it. The upshot of that move is the highly competitive broadband market we have today.

Of  course, in Ian Livingstone’s defence, the costs are likely to be somewhat different for a fibre network roll out that that of ADSL.  However it is highly blinkered to have made that statement.  The applications and the uses will come.  When they built the M25 around London the need for additional lanes was not anticipated but the traffic came…

I think the Government needs to bit the bullet here and make the investment in fibre to areas of the country that don’t otherwise fit with BT/NTL’s ROI requirements.  They should make this network available to all on a wholesale basis.  It will assist with the economic recovery and provide the country with a serious, strategic capability in next generation technology.

What’s more, whilst the Digital Britain report talks about a Universal Service Obligation of 2Mbps to every household in the UK I think this is very shortsighted.  We should be thinking of 1Gbps.

As a footnote to this post I’d like to comment on the very short notice (only 2 – 3 days) provided to attendees for today’s meeting. I’m not a naturally suspicious bloke but I wonder whether there was a hidden reason for this.

My thanks to Chris Williams from The Register for the article about this

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Apps Business mobile connectivity security UC voip

The Channel Wars – Which Channel Will Win The Convergence Battle?

No I’m not talking TV channels here. I’m talking channels to market for converged services. And I’m not talking about which company within a channel will win. I’m talking about which channel will win.

Out there in the big wide world there are three basic types of channel that sell communications services:

  • mobile resellers,
  • PBX resellers and
  • IT resellers

Traditionally none of these channels have stepped on each other’s toes. Ok I know there are probably companies out there that might claim to cover more than one of the spaces but seldom all three.

Certainly mobile dealers find it hard to sell non mobile services. Although PBX resellers have had to get to grips with some aspects of networking in order to be able to sell VoIP enabled products they are far from being involved in the whole gamut of IT related products and services. 

Finally in my experience an IT reseller usually doesn’t have the knowledge to be able to sell voice, be it fixed or mobile. It’s not their space.

The UK is moving at high speed towards being a totally internet connected country. If anything it is speeding up (witness yesterday’s Digital Britain announcement and last year’s roll out of 21CN) and the communications requirements of businesses are going to get evermore complex and ever more converged. 

Convergence and Unified Communications are somewhat trendy buzzwords which have different meanings to different people. The fact is however that businesses will increasingly want to buy services that work with their other services:

  • VoIP that works over a variety of both fixed and mobile networks
  • Integration of the office phone system with the applications sat on a desktop and with mobile devices
  • Seamless portability of applications and backups of key corporate data 
  • All this without compromising on network security

Currently I believe it is only high end corporates that can really indulge in a communications roadmap that embodies the true vision of Unified Communications. However I do think that a new breed of business is appearing that smaller companies and channel partners can turn to for access to the wider range of skills and technologies needed to service this new connected market.

This type of business, call it a super-convergence provider, will be able to partner with any reseller from any channel and offer them a range of products and services that is complementary to what they already do. So  mobile, voice and IT resellers can carry on with their core business without having to worry about not having all the arrows in the quiver.

So what is the answer to my original question? Which channel will win? I guess my view is that the winner will be the channel that works best with the new breed of super-convergence service providers, one of which is clearly Timico.

I’d be interested to hear from people who have views on this subject, either by commenting on this blog, on facebook or by contacting me directly.

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Business internet

Anti-P2P Piracy Regulation Likely To Be Imposed On ISPs?

The UK Government has stirred up the industry today with a press release by the Department of Business, Enterprise And Regulatory Reform (BERR) that intimates it’s intention to regulate ISPs into assisting the music industry to combat illegal downloading.

BERR is saying that last year’s consultation with stakeholders (ISPs and music industry) showed that there is no consensus on how to address the problem and the suggestion is that it sees regulation as being necessary. The whole subject matter, however, is riddled with complexity.

In 2008 the music industry, under a new representative body known as UK Music, run by former pop star  Feargal Sharkey, began discussions with what are known as the “Big Six” ISPs. These are the large branded ISPs that actually represent the majority of the consumer broadband customers in the UK. These discussions were held in private and the rest of the industry has not been party to what was actually being said. My understanding is that the discussions centred purely around enforcement and have not gone particularly well.

The problems centre around being able to prove who is doing the downloading and what is being downloaded – most ISPs can’t tell and have no interest – this surely is a privacy issue. Then there are the costs of policing and finally the fact that none of the ISPs want to lose customers.

At the ISP Conference in London last November I sat on a panel with Feargal Sharkey to discuss this whole issue. At that time we arranged to meet again in the New Year so that the other , smaller, UK ISPs, represented by the ISP Association of which I am a council member could participate in the discussion. That meeting is scheduled for 9th February. So the position taken by BERR is in my view somewhat premature as discussions between stakeholders do not yet appear to me to have  finished.

The nature of talks now is centred around licensing and revenue models. There have been some high profile announcements recently where some big consumer ISPs have severed their contractual relationships with music content providers. This is being done because the existing business models do not work. For example music streaming is licensed on a per stream basis. As the number of streams grow ISPs have to increase their capacity to measure and account for them and the cost of doing so soon outweighs the income derived from selling access to the music. 

So they have to look for an alternative. The strong rumour is that a big UK ISP has already negotiated a deal whereby it can sell unlimited access to music for a fixed monthly fee per subscriber (word on the street is that this is  BT though there has been no offical acknowledgement of this fact).

The meeting on the 9th February is likely to centre around how other ISPs can adopt the same model to everyone’s mutual benefit. From the ISP industry perspective it makes more sense to make music easy to access legally than to drag everyone into complex legal processes which will only benefit lawyers in the long run.

BERR is also now saying that this subject area is also now going to be taken under the wing of the Digital Britain Review, the interim report for which is due out at the end of this month. I am not convinced that this interim report will show much progress. The likelihood is that another consultation will happen in the summer with a target date for legislation in the autumn.

This timetable, I believe, does not really provide enough time for sensible consideration of the legislation and if I were the Government would not want to be getting into an unpopular debate with industry in the run up to the election. There is a feeling on the ISP streets that the government is now looking to come up with some good news stories to take them through 2009 and into a notional spring General Election in 2010.

Time will tell, and soon enough. I will continue to report and comment on this subject. This post is a little longer than usual but there is a lot to talk about.