Tag: Ed Vaizey

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Apps Business internet Regs

Communications Bill – is it going to look at the right subject matter?

Having mentioned the comms bill in my last post I now find that the expected Green Paper is not now going to be published. Instead over the coming months five seminars will inform the communications review.

The seminars will look at:

  • The Consumer Perspective
  • Competition in the Content Market
  • Maximising the value of spectrum to support growth and innovation
  • Driving investment and growth in the UK’s TV content industries  
  • Supporting growth in the radio (audio) sector

“The UK’s communications sector is one of the strongest in the world” said Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. “We must ensure the sector can grow by being at the forefront of new developments in the industry. It is essential that we set the right conditions for the industry to enable businesses to grasp the opportunities created by new technology.”

Communications Minister Ed Vaizey added “The communications industry is a key part of our economy. Through these seminars, we will look in detail at how best to drive investment and competition. We want to shape the Communications Bill so that we have the right framework to secure our place as Europe’s tech hub.”

Much of the blurb up until now is lifted straight from the DCMS website. I can’t argue with any of it though some of it seems to me to be very much born out of subject matter that government can get its brain around.

For example content providers, ie TV companies in the main, have been asking for a level playing field – the clues lie in the bullet points provided to us as a guide on what is likely to be discussed in the Seminar – how important is exclusivity in supporting investment and innovation, how much choice do consumers have and how open is the market to new entrants?

The bit about spectrum is also an easy one to grasp. Although there are legal minefields to tread at the end of the day it seems about making best use of the spectrum available.

This is all fair enough but I do find myself asking how much innovation and growth this is really promoting? It’s all about extensions to old business models.

I humbly suggest that what we really want is to create an environment that supports innovation in the new world we want to be encouraging the next Google or Microsoft to start up in the UK. We do see some signs of progress. The reintroduction of EIS Tax relief for entrepreneurial investors and the effort to create an emphasis on computer programming in schools spring to mind.

I think though that we need to think a lot bigger than we are doing. How about a 10 year moratorium on capital gains tax for new technology startup investment? I bet that would result in many Californian based VC companies moving to the UK.  How about government loans or matched funding for high risk high tech projects. How about creating an immigration environment that would encourage talent to want to come to the UK instead of Silicon Valley?

Perhaps I’m being naïve in thinking that “communications” extends beyond programming content and next gen mobile. Everything I do these days involves communications in some form or other.

The government wants the private sector to haul in the slack created by cuts in the public sector. It needs to come up with creative and innovative solutions to stimulate this. It also needs a level of understanding in government of issues relating to technology and the internet. Many of the noises that we have been hearing are counter-innovative and have been about constraining how we can use technology and not the opposite.  C’mon guys. Move it on.

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Business piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

@EdVaizey opens up web blocking talks to wider stakeholder community #deact

There has been widespread criticism of discussions being held between the ISP industry and RightsHolders over the latter’s desire to effect blocking of websites being seen to promote copyright infringement. It is natural. An activity conducted behind closed doors is bound to arouse suspicion.

The latest of these meetings happened yesterday but today communications minister Ed Vaizey chaired a session that allowed alternative voices to be heard.

Present at the meeting were representatives of the Taxpayers Alliance, Open Rights Group,Pirate Party,COADEC, Open Digital Policy.org, Featured Artists Coalition,LINX and of course me.

I think Ed Vaizey found the level of debate far more constructive than he had been expecting. The gist was

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Engineer internet ipv6 ofcom

#WorldIPv6day marked with industry summit in UK

Just come out of committee room 19 at the House of Commons where a “summit” was held to discuss the state of IPv6 readiness of UK plc. The summit was chaired by Ed Vaizey, Internet minister and together with Timico had representatives of the other top network operators aka BT and Virgin. The mix was enhanced by Cisco, Nominet, Ofcom and other stakeholders.

Reality is that most ISPs have IPv6 covered, or at least a plan in place. The issue is that the rest of UK industry doesn’t. There has been extreme apathy in the corporate sector to push this technology forward.

This is completely understandable. Currently there is no problem. Considering this given a choice between spending money upgrading the corporate network or investing in a revenue generating service the former is a difficult sell for a CIO.

Businesses do need to guard against complacency though otherwise they might find themselves with a problem that will either cost a lot of money to fix quickly or take years of planning.

Neither is government prepared, as far as we can see. This compares with other parts of the world where governments are either mandating IPv6 (eg Malaysia) or are cracking ahead with full blown implementation projects (US Navy/NATO apparently).

In the UK it would appear that IPv6 is seen as a more expensive short term option for projects, at a time where cost control is clearly important. There was a general consensus amongst the 15 or so attendees that the Government should lead on this and that this would spur industry into action.

I agree with this. The cost argument is not a real one but the complacency is. Also we run the risk of other countries being ahead on the innovation curve as they think of ways of exploiting the huge number of IP addresses that now become available with IPv6.

There isn’t a desperate panic here but UK plc does need to get a wiggle on.

Check out the DCMS press release on the summit here http://www.culture.gov.uk/news/news_stories/8205.aspx

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Business piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

Top EU judge says web blocking to prevent copyright infringement infringes fundamental human rights #deappg #deact @edvaizey

The Court of Justice of the European Union yesterday issued a press release stating that “According to Advocate General Cruz Villalón, a measure ordering an internet service provider to install a system for filtering and blocking electronic communications in order to protect intellectual property rights in principle infringes fundamental rights.”

In other words web blocking to try and prevent unlawful P2P downloading is wrong.

“Advocate General Cruz Villalón considers that the installation of that filtering and blocking system is a restriction on the right to respect for the privacy of communications and the right to protection of personal data, both of which are rights protected under the Charter of Fundamental Rights. By the same token, the deployment of such a system would restrict freedom of information, which is also protected by the Charter of Fundamental Rights.”

This is an independent legal opinion and not a court judgement but I understand that the court normally adheres to the Advocate General’s line. This particular opinion is issued in relation to the Scarlet Sabam case which involves copyright infringement. In my mind this should also extend to other areas where calls have been made to introduce web blocking such as porn.

It will be interesting to see the reaction to this opinion in the UK. Communications minister Ed Vaizey has been in the press recently with his controversial initiative to see whether ISPs and RightsHolders would be able to find an acceptable way of blocking access to sites promoting P2P file sharing and copyright infringement.

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Business piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

Don’t block me #DEAct #DEAPPG

It’s a while since I covered the Digital Economy Act, its ramifications and repercussions but last week saw the court hearings take place for the BT/TalkTalk Judicial Review. I was somewhat mistaken in the belief that we might also hear the output of the JR last week but this is not so. The judge needs to go away and deliberate in the way learned people deliberate (this is either hand on chin looking thoughtfully into the distance or chin on chest looking down at interlocked fingers).

The media is already saying that the DEAct implementation is going to be subject to long delays – it already is – we have been waiting for the publication of the Code of Practice for months now. What has been going on in the meantime is further lobbying by Rights Holders to try and get ISPs to block access to websites that promote or support copyright infringement.

Initially this was seen as strange because the DEAct already provides for this to be looked at in the event that the three strikes mechanisms isn’t seen to be working. Cake and eat it springs to mind.

With hindsight it looks as if this was an insurance policy on the part of the RHs in case the DEAct was thrown out in court or subject to delays.

Ed Vaizey has already met with ISPs and RHs in round table meetings to digital content and piracy, the second time being on 23 February 2011. No agreements were made and I believe this is a very long way off. A further meeting is being held next week.

Blocking is likely to be expensive, ineffective, have unintended consequences (eg innocent websites being blocked), seen as censorship, stifle the open growth of the internet ecology and require huge involvement of the judiciary – I certainly would not be happy with ISPs or Rights Holders taking ownership of choosing which sites to block.

Come on guys. Lets try and see a bit of sense here.

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Business piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

@edvaizey answers to @tom_watson questions – take note @Marthalanefox #DEAct #deappg

portcullisYou have to be particularly interested in a topic to read Hansard, the report of parliamentary proceedings. Twitter has made it a lot easier, albeit hit and miss – you typically have to catch the tweet in the stream as it happens.

This week Ed Vaizey gave some answers to questions put by ISPA Internet Hero Tom Watson MP. Specifically Mr Vaizey said that the impact assessment on the DEAct suggested that the additional costs that would have to be applied to consumers broadband lines would have a relatively small but permanent effect of reducing demand for broadband connection by between 10,000-40,000. All assuming that the ISPs would pass on the full costs to their customers.

There are a few observations to make here.

Firstly the obvious one is that this goes against another government policy of trying to promote digital inclusion. Might the government now want to subsidise 10,000 – 40,000 broadband connections to offset the fact that they will not now be able to afford broadband. I wonder whether Martha Lane Fox, the government’s own Digital Inclusion Champion has any comments to make here?

The second point concerns the numbers used in the Impact Assessment itself. There is very little confidence within the ISP industry that the government got this right.

The Impact Assessment assumes that the total annual cost to all ISPs is between £30m and £50m. TalkTalk and BT have been suggesting that the annualized costs to their companies along are considerably higher than the total assumed for the whole industry.

The Impact Assessment clearly needs reviewing. Broadband expansion has been largely down to big cost reductions by ISPs in a very competitive market place. There is a clear relationship between broadband penetration and cost of the service. It has long since got to the point where consumer ISPs especially have had to expand their value proposition away from pure internet access because in itself this service had become unprofitable.

It would not surprise me to see a new Impact Assessment based on real costs showing a massively higher number of people that would be excluded from the broadband market.
I guess we will have to wait until after the Judicial Review to see what happens. In the meantime, c’mon Martha get your boxing gloves on. There is a fight going on here.

Link to Hansard – includes some other DEAct related questions from Tom Watson.

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broadband Business

@edvaizey @jeremy_hunt please read this #deappg #digitalbritain #fttc #fttp

Last week I wrote an analysis on the superfast broadband strategy published by Jeremy Hunt. It attracted more comments than any other post I have written in the last three years. I concluded that whilst the published strategy might enable the government to meet its near term objectives it was not necessarily the best thing for UK plc.

Now Barry Forde, the brains behind CLEO, has written a post on broadbandcumbria.com that goes into fantastic analytical detail as to why promoting a FTTC based plan is not the right thing to do. Indeed Barry shows that in the medium term it would be the more expensive approach and would lead to continued requests for government handouts.

I can’t better this piece of analysis and suggest you read it here.

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Business Cloud net neutrality ofcom Regs

Net Neutrality: An ISP View

Net Neutrality and whether the government should regulate ISPs to guarantee an open and fair internet for all has become a trending topic. As an ISP my natural inclination is to say that there should be no regulation. A government’s job is to regulate only where necessary. ISPs are easy targets because the whole world is moving its operations online and ISPs are the conduit to that world. We are constantly warding off regulation.

Ofcom has said that there is not enough evidence for them to come up with any proposals for regulation in this space.

At the same time ISPs, in particular mobile ISPs have said that in order to be able to invest in the growth of their network infrastructure they need to be able to charge premium rates for premium services. The nature of these services has yet to be determined, at least publicly. Mobile network operators are expecting a hundred fold increase in bandwidth demand over the next three years and in their minds they need somehow to be able to pay for this capacity. O2 has been very vocal about this.

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broadband Business Regs

Rural Broadband: Government Protects Outlay in Spending Review Cuts

country dwelling user of broadband

George Osborne announced in today’s Government Spending Review that the £530m of BBC monies earmarked for rural broadband will not be taken away. Superfast broadband will be trialled in the Highlands, North Yorkshire, Cumbria and Herefordshire.

Taken in the light of an £83Bn cut in spending this must be seen as good news. Considering though that the recently announced project in Cornwall cost £132m this suggests that these four areas could well consume the whole amount.

Please don’t get me wrong here.

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broadband Business

Pigeon Versus Broadband Publicity Statistics #trefandrory

The pigeon versus broadband race last week generated a phenomenal level of interest. It must be said this is an illustration of the power of the BBC – although of course the fun nature of the event itself must have helped.

The race, which involved near constant media exposure throughout the day, was covered on BBC Radio 2,3,4,5, BBC1 News at 6.30 and 10pm, BBC Scotland, Humberside, World Service and Lincolnshire (they are the only ones I know of). The first radio interview was a 6.15 am and the last, Radio 5 Live, was at around 6.50pm

It was the 5th most popular item on the BBC website on Thursday – by 6.18pm it had had 92,357 story views, competing mainly with the Pope’s

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Business internet Regs

Ed Vaizey wants help re VOA fibre rates – please comment here

Last week the Valuation Office Agency put out revised guidelines for assessing rateable values for fibre connections.

There is no change at the high end so the likes of Virgin and BT will remain unaffected. However at the smaller network end of the scale there has been a massive price hike.

In 2005 if you were running a pair of fibres over 1km you would be stung with a rateable value of £280. In 2010 this has now shot up to £2000. This will not of course affect BT because they have a negotiated total rateable value for their network.

The upshot of this is that at a time when industry has been crying out for a level “rates” playing field the VOA has made it an even more unequal commercial battle in favour of the large incumbent operators.

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