Digital Britain - awaiting the outcome ….

Just another week to go before Lord Stephen Carter publishes his Digital Britain report. And with a week to go the various interest groups are positioning themselves ahead of the launch.

There have been numerous ‘trails’ which may turn out to be more positioning than actualities. We won’t really know until the document is in the public domain.

But things that are likely……

There is a recognition that broadband services are an essential part of modern life (recognised in a survey commissioned by Ofcom), as essential as water, gas and electricity. So broadband becomes the 4th service (do I recall the AA advertising themselves as the 4th emergency service?).

Broadband service providers (essentially that means BT) are to be encouraged to ensure a minimum level of service at 2Mbit. Easier said than done and will require some changes to the means of provision. Ofcom has today (11th June) removed the restrictions that prevented Openreach from operating electronic equipment within the network. This removal will pave the way for Openreach to operate fibre to the cabinet and direct ethernet to end users.

Ofcom recognise that there remains a significant group of internet Not users - typically older generation. They estimate that 20% of this group will sign up to broadband services if the cost and service is right. That might have to include some form of top-up education. Of course, 20% takeup leaves a remaining 80% of the group who do not see the need or do not want Internet access. Increasing takeup amongst this group will be difficult.

There have been moves from rights owners to suggest the introduction of a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy. With the recognition that broadband is now an essential service this is unlikely to be approved by Lord Carter - indeed, other Government Ministers have made it clear that the Government will not force ISPs to block access. There will have to be other ways found. Those might include some form of packet shaping to reduce the performance of the sharers - but not all ISPs will be in a position to do this. Certainly the smaller ISPs will find this difficult and will not have the flexibility of multiple central pipes to transfer heavy users to a specific ‘bad boys’ pipe.

So we wait. 16th June will be an interesting day.