Digital Britain – The future’s so vague

Lord Carter has delivered his interim report on Digital Britain, and to quote David Bowie out of context, it is mostly poppycock.

It is quite a spectacularly boring read only lightened by surprise attempts at humour. At least, that is what I took, for example, part of the report on mobile broadband to be. The report says:

“In so far as public policy can help to unlock this exciting mobile broadband future the keys are, firstly the re-farming and liberalisation of GSM spectrum, allowing it to be used for 3G or LTE use … Unfortunately the UK has hit a temporary road block that is not allowing the release of the spectrum needed to keep us on track towards this important broadband mobile future. It is in the public interest for this impasse to be resolved speedily – either through a voluntary industry wide consensus with Ofcom that respects the principle of an equitable competitive start (the preferred option as it will be the fastest solution) or the Government would support an imposed process. The government believes that time is of the essence.”

The ‘temporary roadblock’ that the report alludes to are appeals brought by T-Mobile and 02 against Ofcom’s decision on the scheduling of an auction for the release of radio spectrum in the 2.6 GHz and 2010 MHz bands. T-Mobile and 02 argue that the decision is neither soundly based nor adequately justified, in that Ofcom failed to first decide on its policy on the liberalisation and potential refarming of 2G mobile spectrum. As a result of the appeals, Ofcom had to announce it would not proceed with the spectrum auction until the legal review challenges by T-Mobile and O2 have been heard by the High Court. I presume the government’s support for an imposed process, isn’t one that ignores the Courts.

The Bone thrown to perhaps get the above issue resolved sooner rather than later seems to be the offer to extend the current 3G licences (due to expire 2021) into perpetuity, and just take a spectrum fee based on administrative incentive pricing (API) from the mobile operators instead.

Elsewhere, whilst IP Minister, David Lammy, was apparently telling The Times this week that the Government had ruled out legislating to force ISPs to cut off ‘alleged’ illegal filesharers, the report said that legislation was the plan. “Our response to the consultation on peer-to-peer file sharing sets out our intention to legislate, requiring ISPs to notify alleged infringers of rights (subject to reasonable levels of proof from rights- holders) that their conduct is unlawful. We also intend to require ISPs to collect anonymised information on serious repeat infringers (derived from their notification activities), to be made available to rights-holders together with personal details on receipt of a court order. We intend to consult on this approach shortly, setting out our proposals in detail.”

DRM has a role in the reports vision of our Digital future too. Indeed, I was surprised to learn that the “paradigm that the film industry has encouraged” is where DRM allows users to access content on any device that they own, rather than being device limited. I must have been away from the internet that day.

Net Neutrality gets a mention, and government is happy for current or future ISPs to engage in traffic management – and charge for services off the back of it – just so long as the ISP(s) are not found to have significant market power.

On Public Service Broadcasting, the Carter report, like Ofcom, seems keen on Channel 4 being the UK’s second dedicated PSB, providing competition to the BBC. Its plans on how this would work are as vague as Ofcom’s, and do not – for instance – explain how a possible tie-up with BBC Worldwide would produce any benefit to the UK public, outside of plugging a hole in Channel 4’s finances (in the same way as a CH4/CH5 tie-up would be of most benefit the Five). The Report – unlike Ofcom – is also keen not to rule out top-slicing the BBC licence fee, if all else fails. So, you’re not in the clear yet BBC, although you do have to promote DAB, Broadband, Digital TV and just about everything else to do with Digital Britain to help us all become leaders of the digital world with our ‘up to’ 2MB broadband for all by 2012 (Hope Ofcom don’t read that, they and the ASA are not very keen on ‘up to’ claims these days).

On Next Generation Access the report says “Between now and the final Digital Britain Report, the Government will, while recognising existing investments in infrastructure, work with the main operators and others to remove barriers to the development of a wider wholesale market in access to ducts and other primary infrastructure.” Now, personally, I have no idea what this means – it’s waffle. Then again, the report does mention that “Germany has sought to combine a measure of regulatory and fiscal incentives to encourage its main telco to upgrade to fibre.” [This wouldn't be the 'regulatory holiday' that the EU keeps telling them breaks EU law is it?, and that BT would love to have in the UK]

There is lots more in the report, and I’m sure Russ will have something to say on it.

One final note, as is I believe now compulsory, the report even manages to name check President Obama.