Stephen Timms gave a speech yesterday at the All Party Parliamentary Communications Group. Some nuggets, along with my reactions:

Timms: ‘Since I last spoke to you, the average speed of UK broadband has trebled to 4.6 mbs – more than 80 times faster than the speed of dial-up connections. Broadband is now available to 99.6 per cent of the country.’

My take: This statement is, of course, untrue with respect to average broadband speeds. Ofcom are mostly to blame for this. It was inevitable that when Ofcom used misleading ‘headline’ broadband speeds in its reports and presentations that people would become confused and think that Ofcom were referring to real broadband speeds. Now it appears the confusion has reached the very heights of policy making. This is not good. I think Ofcom should issue some sort of corrective or forward-looking document that addresses this issue. It could be quite simple, but Ofcom do need to make it clear to policy makers and the public that broadband speeds are probably much slower than advertised.

Timms: ‘I am chairing a high level summit on 26 November with to look at what the circumstances that might trigger this public sector intervention could be. As Minister for Competitiveness, I see the importance of establishing a high performance telecommunications network as my highest personal priority. The summit will bring together key people from Government, industry and Ofcom to explore all the issues in an open environment, hopefully under ‘Chatham House’, rules so that people can express their views openly in the confidence that they will contribute to important policy considerations.’

My take: Oh dear. The public — uninvited. And — for such an issue of national importance — people don’t feel comfortable expressing their views unless the Chatham House rule applies?