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01 Aug 2013

DCMS and Arqiva reveal locations of Mobile Infrastructure Projects

Government has this week revealed the first locations that will be covered by the £150m Mobile Infrastructure Project. In an announcement on the DCMS site, mobile phone coverage will be increased in areas where no coverage is currently available. Cornwall, Northumberland, Strabane, Aberdeenshire and Powys are among the areas that stand to benefit most from the project, with the first sites due to “go live??? by the end of this year. (more…)

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30 Jul 2013

DCMS publish policy paper – Connectivity, Content and Consumers: Britain's digital platform for growth

Today the Department for Culture, Media and Sport publish the policy paper Connectivity, Content and Consumers: Britain’s digital platform for growth.

We are pleased to share that the Broadband Stakeholder Group has been 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, industry and others on this. (more…)

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22 Jul 2013

One Digital Nation? Shadow Minister Helen Goodman MP speaks to BSG on policy post 2015

 

Shadow Minister Helen Goodman MP addressed the Broadband Stakeholder Group on Tuesday 16 July 2013 on communications and broadband policy post-2015. Following Labour’s announcement that they would invest £75 million in a new programme that would focus on getting more people online and improving digital skills provision if they won the next election, Helen Goodman MP spoke on her vision for digital inclusion, infrastructure, skills, the role of mobile, and more.

A Storify of the #OneDigitalNation twitter conversation is available here.

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05 Jul 2013

National Audit Office release report on the rural broadband programme

This morning, the National Audit Office released their anticipated report on the rural broadband programme. It is available here.

The report set out the following recommendations:

  • DCMS should review all the reasons for the delay in roll-out to date and guard against further slippage
  • DCMS should seek greater assurance that BT’s bid prices are reasonable and do not contain excessive contingency
  • DCMS should implement the procedures it is developing to thoroughly monitor in-life contract costs, placing additional emphasis on ensuring staff expertise
  • DCMS should consider evidence on take-up rates outside of the programme and discuss with BT whether its modelling assumptions are still valid

NAO head Amyas Morse is quoted as saying “the rural broadband project is moving forward late and without the benefit of strong competition to protect public value. For this we will have to rely on the Department’s active use of the controls it has negotiated and strong supervision by Ofcom.???

The Public Accounts Committee, lead by Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, is expected to hold a session on this issue later this month. They have issued a press release here.

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01 Jul 2013

CEO's monthly update – A pre-summer policy spree

 

Pamela Learmonth

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…)

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27 Jun 2013

Investing in Britain’s Broadband Future – Government provides further detail on a post-2015 vision

Whilst yesterday’s Spending Round had scant mention of broadband, this morning’s Investing in Britain’s Future publication on Infrastructure from the Treasury shed further light on the Government’s vision for broadband post-2015.

In his speech to parliament, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said he wanted UK communities to be better connected.  This was reflected in £250m funds for fixed superfast broadband, targeted to cover 95% of the population by 2017 (building on the Government’s current target of 90% by 2015). This £250m comes as part of the £300m that had been previously been allocated for broadband from the TV licence fee in the period 2015-2017 (with the remaining £50m remaining uncommitted).

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26 Jun 2013

DCMS launches consultation on Connection Vouchers

Yesterday the Department for Culture, Media and Sport launched its much anticipated consultation on Connection Vouchers, one part of the government’s high profile Super Connected Cities programme (also referred to as the Urban Broadband Fund). It is available for download here.

Minister Ed Vaizey has described the Connection Voucher initiative’s aim to “stimulate the market to improve digital connectivity in participating cities, in particular for the benefit of SMEs”. (more…)

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14 Jun 2013

BSG issue response to DCMS and DCLG consultation on mobile connectivity

Today the Broadband Stakeholder Group submitted its response to proposals aimed at boosting the roll-out of mobile and mobile broadband, issued by the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

The BSG supports the main tenants and objectives of the proposals but recommends that the government may wish to go further on:

  • Ensuring infrastructure upgrades in non-protected areas can occur under permitted development, without the need for prior approval, to support an efficient 4G roll-out process
  • Further ease restrictions in protected areas to support improved connectivity in rural and hard to reach areas

The response also offers some additional proposals focused on how to support anticipated new infrastructure in support of mobile connectivity, in addition to the proposals to support upgrade of existing infrastructure.

Read the full response to the consultation here.

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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:

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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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