The final part of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report, which will outline a roadmap for the development of broadband infrastructure in the UK, is due to be published today. There has been much speculation about the contents of the document, after the interim report was published back in January.
Recent announcements by ISPs here in the UK and noises made by content providers such as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) have given us some clues as to what the report may contain.
Here is a brief round-up of what is widely expected to be included in the report:
• Measures to provide speeds of at least 2Mbps to every UK home - this will almost certainly include a mixture of fixed-line and mobile connections. ISPs and mobile network operators could receive government incentives to invest in future broadband connections.
• A Rights Agency designed to prevent illegal file sharing. This may or may not involve a ‘three strikes’ system, whereby first offenders will be sent written warnings, persistent offenders will frisk having their connections slowed to a halt. Yesterday’s announcement by Virgin Media sees the ISP offering a carrot to go with the stick, in the form of unlimited downloads of DRM-free music with its broadband services. Such offers could become commonplace throughout the market.
• A change to the BBC licence fee which will see the public service broadcaster help cover the costs of bandwidth eaten up by use of its iPlayer on-demand platform. The BBC could also be asked to share proceeds earned from the licence fee with commercial rivals such as ITV and Channel 4, both of whom have their own ITV Player and 4oD on-demand offerings.
• Funding for investment in future networks may also be accrued from the licence fee. A speed of 2Mbps is the minimum required speed for viewing programmes on iPlayer online, so it makes sense for a fraction of the licence fee to be used for this purpose. Doing so should in theory allow everyone to watch footage of the London 2012 Olympics live on line. This will be beneficial to those living in parts of the UK such as Cornwall where digital terrestrial reception is patchy.
The Digital Britain report not only affects the future of broadband in the UK.
Writing in the Financial Times yesterday, Lord Carter harked back to an idealised vision of Britain’s past as an industrial superpower. “Just as Britain’s canals and railways formed the symbolic infrastructure of the industrial revolution, so the country can exploit the internet revolution using fibre optics and cable in fixed and next generation mobile technology.”
We’ll publish the details of the Digital Britain report as soon as we heard about them.
Source: Financial Times
Posted by Tom on June 16th 2009 in Next Gen Broadband, Virgin Media
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Rob Abdul said on 02 Jul 2009 at 1:10 am #
I love the virgin brand. I wish the best for them.