Yearly Archives - 2013

July saw the long-awaited Communications Strategy paper from government, downgraded from its original billing as a White Paper. Connectivity, Content and Consumers: Britain’s digital platform for growth tackled four main areas: world-class connectivity and digital inclusion, world-beating innovative content, consumer confidence and safety and the cost of living. We were pleased to be named as the key conduit to assess what the commercial requirements will be as part of the development of an overall UK digital communications infrastructure strategy for 2015 to 2025. We look forward to working with government and industry on this going forward, and you can read our short briefing on the paper here.

We were pleased to welcome shadow communications and media minister Helen Goodman MP to the BSG, where she spoke on Labour’s notion of ‘One Digital Nation’ and how broadband and digital communications can be harnessed to the benefit of citizens. You can watch the video of this speech here. (more…)

A busy month in the broadband policy landscape, with the Treasury’s Spending Round and Infrastructure update providing a revised signal of intent on the Government’s headline broadband delivery targets. By upping fixed line broadband targets to 95% of the population by 2017, the Government have found a new headline target which accommodates for recent delays to roll-out and pleasing those who want wider rollout of superfast fixed connectivity. Chief Secretary Danny Alexander MP also indicated a new vision for 99% superfast connectivity including mobile solutions, and there was also mention of a revised scope for BDUK based on the recent recommendations of Olympic stalwart Lord Deighton. The Information Economy Strategy signposted a new scheme on SMEs and digital skills provision, which we can expect the Deputy Prime Minister to outline fully later in the year. (more…)