News

14 Jun 2013

BSG publishes details of voluntary process underpinning Open Internet code

In July 2012 the BSG published, on behalf of signatory ISPs, the Open Internet code of practice. That code set out a commitment by signatory ISPs not to deploy traffic management in a manner that targets and degrades the content or application(s) of specific providers.

The code also committed to setting up a voluntary process in support of that commitment and the code of practice has been updated to contain details of that process. (more…)

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14 Jun 2013

Unanswered questions remain on digital scope of Draft Consumer Rights Bill

The Draft Consumer Rights Bill has now been published, following its announcement in the 2013 Queen’s Speech last month. This will be of particular interest to the broadband community in light of its aim to update consumer protection to keep up with technological developments, particularly in regard to digital purchases.

The Bill has been touted by BIS minister Jo Swinson as “enhancing consumer rights and making them easier to understand, which will boost the economy by £4 billion over the next decade???, and will now cover the repair or replacement of faulty digital content such as film and music downloads, online games and e-books. (more…)

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10 Jun 2013

BitTorrent use drops as innovations in Video-on-Demand re-shape traffic stats

Consultants Sandvine published a report last month observing an emerging pattern that many suspect will become the norm in consumer traffic habits. That is that the use of BitTorrent – the practice of peer-to-peer file sharing, and the protocol often associated with the illegal download of copyrighted material – is waning. In the words of the authors, “We believe as more over-the-top Real-Time Entertainment (RTE) sources are made available to subscribers in the future, the rate of decline in share will begin to accelerate.???

As the report highlights, Netflix’s market leadership in RTE continues to dominate the American market, accounting for almost a third of peak downstream traffic on fixed networks, with share on mobile doubling in the last year. Elsewhere, YouTube is still the largest single source of RTE traffic on both fixed and mobile – yes, YouTube is still the leading source of Internet traffic in the entire world.

The report considers global trends, but I have picked out a number of highlights relevant for the European market:

(more…)

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06 Jun 2013

CEO’s monthly update – the rolling traffic lights of broadband policy

Pamela LearmonthFirst up, traffic management – or more specifically net neutrality and the open internet – are firmly back on the political agenda. Commissioner Neelie Kroes outlined her ‘No Disconnect’ policy in a major speech this week. Watch this space for updates from the UK being coordinated by the BSG over the coming months, and take a look at our work to date here.

The Major Projects Authority – the unit based in the Cabinet Office tasked with evaluating the progress of major government programmes – rated the four major broadband initiatives running out DCMS as operating with either ‘Amber’ or ‘Amber/Red’ status – read BSG’s blog on the report here. (more…)

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28 May 2013

DCMS Broadband initiatives feature in Major Projects Authority annual report

Last week saw the publication of the Major Projects Authority annual report, the result of the collaboration between the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury and departments aiming to significantly improving the delivery success rate of major projects across central government through monitoring and the opening up of public data.

Details on the major public broadband initiatives within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport were published as part of this report, and we’ve pulled out some highlights for our readers: (more…)

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24 May 2013

The curious and ongoing case of national fibre strategies: BSG review recent Arthur D Little report

A recent paper from Arthur D Little has aimed to shed further light on the global conundrum that, despite a number of great macro-economic justifications, private industry has struggled to make the case for national fibre strategies. National Fibre Strategies: National economic imperative or just another private industry task?, presents five models for national fibre strategies, looking at the relationships between very fast speeds, productivity and innovation. The report does not claim to have cast light on causal relationships, but nevertheless its claim that increasing home speed broadband by 1Mbps increases household income by an average of $100 per year is a powerful one. (more…)

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08 May 2013

Queen's Speech 2013 – broadband business as usual

Today’s Queen’s Speech was, as expected, not full of surprises – both in a general sense and in relation to broadband and technology.

In the context of an overall political message to focus govermment activity in support of a strong, growing and competitive economy whilst building a fair society to reward people who work hard, the major legislative planks formed around immigration, pensions, social care and education.

No name-check to broadband in the Queen’s Speech, refecting the business as usual approach the government has taken for some time in respect of the ongoing programmes in support of broadband rollout.  No mention either to the Communications Bill where we are expecting a White Paper before the summer recess.

Three announcements are however of interest to those in the sector: (more…)

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03 May 2013

BSG supports Digital Scotland, 22 May 2013

Digital Scotland The Broadband Stakeholder Group is pleased to be a partner of NextGen’s Digital Scotland Conference.

This unique Conference will bring together a wide variety of parties with interests and responsibilities in Scotland’s Digital Future. Speakers will include representatives from Scottish Government, civic and local authorities, community leaders, key businesses enterprises and the networking and digital applications industry, including our own CEO Pamela Learmonth.

(more…)

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02 May 2013

CEO's monthly update: Reaching milestones

 

Pamela LearmonthThe end of April saw a number of milestones met by various broadband players. Ofcom pronounced that broadband in the UK had reached new levels of competition, with the number of unbundled telephone lines to homes hitting 9 million. This came just days after EE reported strong 4G take-up, making ‘good progress by focusing on high value segments’. Lord Tony Hall started as Director General at the BBC, and in his letter to staff on his first day he asked “What are the next big trends in technology and consumption that we need to grasp as we did with BBC Online and iPlayer???? Gov.uk won Design of the Year 2013, and the NAO announced that it would be conducting a review into the 4G auction process. (more…)

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19 Apr 2013

Elevating the case for getting disabled people online

Go ON GoldLast night saw the case put to businesses from across the technology industry to engage with the accessibility agenda, hosted by our partners Intellect. The statistics are certainly compelling – half of all people who have never been online are disabled according to Go ON UK Gold’s Dan Jellinek – and if policy-makers want to get serious about furthering digital inclusion then working with the third sector and those in industry that provide systems, services and content on approaches to accessibility will be crucial. (more…)

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08 Apr 2013

New report calls attention to the offline populace

Just over a week ago the National Audit Office published Digital Britain 2: Putting users at the heart of government’s digital services. Its authors looked at the progress being made with the Government’s ‘digital by default’ agenda for public services. Today we see that it has been taken up for further inquiry by the Public Accounts Committee, indicating that this agenda will continue to receive further scrutiny from various quarters and will have to address the significant numbers of people who cannot, or do wish to, go online. (more…)

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