Parliament not convinced by Digital Britain report

by Scott Bicheno on 1 July 2009, 13:29

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No hurry

It took Lord Carter, the minister for communications, technology and broadcasting, eight months to come up with the 245-page Digital Britain report.

The findings of the investigation pleased few and surprised even fewer by recommending a new tax, more bureaucracy and a bunch of new targets, but it posed as many questions as it answered.

However, it looks like the bureaucratic gravy train still has some distance to run as Parliament has decided to investigate the investigation. It will be carried out by the Business and Enterprise Committee and will consider the following topics:

  • Whether the target for universal access to broadband at a speed of 2Mb/s by 2012 is ambitious enough.
  • Is the Government right to propose a levy on copper lines to fund next generation access?
  • Will the Government's plans for next generation access work?
  • If companies are providing the speed of access which they promise to consumers.
  • The extent to which current regulation strikes the right balance between ensuring fair competition and encouraging investment in next generation networks.
  • Any other views stakeholders think the Committee should be aware of...

It looks like pretty much anyone can declare themselves a ‘stakeholder' and if you want to make the committee aware of any of your views you can, by emailing an MS Word document of no more than eight pages to becom@parliament.uk.

The committee, which is comprised of MPs from all three parties, is following the same frenetic timescale as the original report, giving stakeholders only until 25 September to rush out their ten cents worth. There are some guidelines on submitting evidence to inquiries here.

 

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Posted by Andeh13 - Wed 01 Jul 2009 21:51
Its a joke the way all this red tape & bureaucracy comes into things. 8 months for a report to tell us we're decades behind the likes of Japan & . Korea, only for it to spend a few more months being thought about & talked about, then a few more months for a trail only to end up being scrapped or changed into something different by a new government.

Surely it would be a damn site easier & cheaper for the government to subsidise the running of cable new (fibre or copper) cable by the industry, and researching the use of broadband via the airwaves such as 3g/(4g) technology?


No wonder the UK is so far behind the times on what can be seen as vital services to home & industry, its nothing short of laughable the way everything has to jump through a dozen hoops at each stage before anything happens.
Posted by Faiakes - Wed 01 Jul 2009 22:52
This is what I sent them:

To WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Dear Sir/madam


‘FAIR USE’ & Service Limitations

Certain ISPs claim that they ‘need’ to place (volume) limitations on domestic users in order to provide a consistent and reliable service to the whole of their customers. This is an unfair practice against the consumer because failure to provide a consistent service is not the customers' fault. Since the customer is paying for a promised service they have every right to fully use it.
Furthermore, this practice is based on arbitrary criteria. Virgin, for example, claims that it measures the volume use of the top 5% of its customers and uses that as a reference for the tipping point beyond which other users will experience poor service. However, that has to do with the quality of Virgin’s infrastructure and not with the use of the service the customers are paying for.
What seems to be common practice is that ISPs allow themselves to become oversubscribed and as a result their infrastructure can’t handle the load their customers generate. These ‘Fair Use’ terms are nothing but pitiful excuses to hide the inadequacy of their networks and their shoddy business practices. Britain will never catch up with the rest of the world if such practices are allowed to continue.
To add insult to injury, no ISP provides a means by which a user can determine whether he/she is approaching the top 5% of users. How is one supposed to know? In fact, ISPs, don’t even bother to send users a simple e-mail regarding this matter. A customer may be able to keep track of the volume of their own downloads but they are certainly not able to know how much others users are downloading and consequently their relative position among them.

‘Unlimited Downloads’

To be precise, there can be no such thing as unlimited downloads. One’s downloads, i.e. volume of data that can be downloaded, is a simple multiplication: one’s download speed * time (in this case a month).
For example, if one receives a 100% service quality on a 2Mb line, 2Mb = 256KB/s maximum theoretical download speed, then the best service they can possibly receive is being able to download at full speed continuously for a whole month. This is: 256KBs per second * 2,592,000 seconds (for a 30 day month) = 648,000MBs = ~632,8 GBs. THAT is the maximum/best service a 2Mb customer can possibly have. No ISP in the UK comes close to providing that kind of service for domestic users. Only business customers can come close to this but they pay exorbitant fees for the privilege.
If the state is serious in its commitment to bring Britain up to speed in broadband penetration it needs to judge ISPs according to this actual measurement of quality of service while not allowing ISPs to make false advertising claims in order to sell a product which they cannot or are unwilling to offer.

Measures to bring about the desire result should include:

1. A requirement of ISPs to stop advertising ‘Up to…’ services and instead advertise Minimum Download/Upload Speed services. It is only fair that customers should pay for the service they are in fact receiving.
2. To that purpose, an independent means of measuring service performance ought to be set up. Customers or state agencies ought to be able to easily test the quality of the service users are receiving and use it as evidence to make a claim against the ISP, if needed.
3. A requirement of ISPs to stop advertising ‘Unlimited downloads’ services and instead advertise either a Maximum Downloads service (referring to a 24/7 use of the line at the advertised speed) or a Limited Downloads service, where the maximum amount of data downloaded is clearly stated.
4. ISPs need to provide a per customer counter, clearly indicating the amount of data a customer has downloaded at any given time (so that customers can avoid exceeding their limits).
5. An immediate stop to the ‘Fair Use’ clause practice. Whatever limitations exist ought to be clearly and explicitly stated within the advertisement of said service.
6. A clear guideline set for ISPs. No service which is subject to limitations in its use (commonly referred to as ‘caps’) ought to be allowed to be advertised as ‘Unlimited’.
Posted by Andeh13 - Thu 02 Jul 2009 13:09
Well said Faiakes, knowing this government we will hopefully see them act(badly) on their findings within the next decade or two! Its progress i guess. :juggle:
Posted by Faiakes - Thu 02 Jul 2009 13:26
Andehh
Well said Faiakes, knowing this government we will hopefully see them act(badly) on their findings within the next decade or two! Its progress i guess. :juggle:
Thanks Andehh

It took me over an hour to write it and I was getting progressively more frustrated thinking that it is very likely they won't implement any of it… :angst: