Monthly Archives - February 2009

Leonard Waverman, of the London Business School, recently published the Connectivity Scorecard 2009, a follow-up to a 2008 scorecard he produced.

The scorecard is one of the more comprehensive efforts to benchmark performance, given its global nature and its composite metrics that provide a more useful view of connectivity within a country. Interestingly, the US comes out on top, followed by the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, and, also interestingly, the UK.

The UK is able to rank highly because the index is based on usage and skills as well as infrastructure, with different scores and weighting for government, consumers and business. So, while we are behind in terms of consumer infrastructure development, we are ahead on usage, particularly by businesses.

We do, however, score fairly lowly on government infrastructure and usage, which will be of concern given Digital Britain’s focus on moving government services online, enabled by a broadband universal service commitment. A country report is available on the scorecard’s website.

The scorecard provides a more useful and holistic view of a country’s performance than other examples such as the OECD league tables, which are often based on one or two specific measures and normally based on infrastructure comparison, rather than usage and skills. However, as always with such an index, data quality can be an issue, and the range of sources available for measuring each country against a specific metric will be limited and vary in reliability.

In Pipe Dreams we called for international benchmarking of the UK’s broadband performance; the need for this was re-iterated by the Caio Review. This scorecard isn’t perfect, but is one of the best efforts out there. The approach should certainly be of interest to public and regulatory policymakers as the UK’s NGA debate continues.

Peter Shearman, Policy Manager, BSG

The Government’s Digital Britain report rightly devotes a chapter to how you can “equip everyone to benefit??? from the digital future.

Whilst much of the commentary around the report has focused on infrastructure, broadband speeds and protection of copyright online, the important issue of how to drive take-up has been somewhat overlooked.

Such an oversight would be dangerous.

Without widespread take-up of broadband and the services which run over it, growth scenarios for the sector and the economy more widely will suffer.

Without tackling the various and often complicated reasons for people choosing not to get “online???, there is also the risk that a significant section of the population miss out on the opportunities that the digital future offers them.

Not a outcome that anyone would seek.

The Digital Britain report recognises that one of the reasons that people choose not to engage with digital technology is a lack of confidence.

The BSG agrees with this and believes that it is vital to resolve any consumer concerns and misgivings about how digital services work and their implications.

It may seem a self-evident point to make, but the provision of clear information about the nature of services can certainly go a long way to achieve this outcome.

This is the approach taken by the Good Practice Principles on Audiovisual Content Information, which were facilitated by the BSG. The Principles commit leading content players to give clear and easy to use information about commercial content that may be unsuitable to children and young people or cause more general offence, so that individuals can make informed choices about the content they want to access – whether online, on a mobile phone or through an on-demand TV service.

This week, leading social network providers across Europe committed to a set of principles to enhance the safety of children and young people using their services. These are to:

• Raise awareness of safety education messages and acceptable use policies
• Work towards ensuring that services are age-appropriate for the intended audience
• Empower users through tools and technology
• Provide easy-to-use mechanisms to report conduct or content that violates Terms of Service
• Respond to notifications of illegal content or conduct
• Enable and encourage users to employ a safe approach to personal information and privacy
• Assess the means for reviewing illegal or prohibited content/conduct

These principles embody existing practice of social network providers and further demonstrate the role that industry can play in giving the consumers the tools and confidence they need to engage with digital services in a safe and confident way.

As the final findings of Stephen Carter’s Digital Britain report are crafted, we hope it will conclude that in order to empower the digital citizen of the future, knowledge and confidence is key.

Pamela Learmonth, Policy Manager, BSG

Last Monday saw snow bring the majority of England to a standstill, and disrupted many businesses. But the ability to work from home remotely meant that the disruption for some was less than it otherwise might have been.

ISP PlusNet have produced data showing that the amount of VPN and other associated traffic on their network on Monday was double what it usually is, reflecting the amount of remote working taking place. While the FSB estimated that UK business lost up to £1bn in lost productivity, BT estimate that small businesses recovered £333m of that through flexible working arrangements.

Our work last year on the value of next generation broadband suggested that additional remote working opportunities would bring a variety of benefits to the economy and society – social benefits through better work-life balance and less need for travel; economic benefits in terms of increased productivity. We also included the benefits of remote working in disaster situations, such as flu pandemics.

However, we didn’t factor in snow. We might have to go back and revise our estimates if the cold snap continues.

Peter Shearman, Policy Manager, BSG