Digital Britain

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Comment by Les Simon on March 16, 2012 at 0:41

Thirty years after high speed communications networks were first proposed we are finally seeing fast broadband. That's how long it has taken for commercially viable high speed networks to become widely available at domestic prices. But just as the phone system would be flawed if entire communities had no access broadband must also be universally available at sensible prices. Even today some areas do not have gas and must use electricity for cooking and heating. Universal broadband will not be provided by the private sector - some areas are not cabled and the BT fixed line systems are too antiquated to carry fast signals. Mandatory cross-subsidy is essential. Cable firms and phone companies must commit to connecting uneconomic rural areas in return for access to the profitable markets and that committment must equate to completition in a reasonable timescale, 5-10 years. If they fail to do so or opt out the alternative should be a mandatory levy used by the regulator to pay for remote areas to be cabled up. The alternative is an infrastructure that omits large areas of the UK landmass. 

Comment by Ben Devlin on March 11, 2012 at 1:52

Not sure if this is the right place but how many digital TV channels do the BBC and Channel 4 need? And how many should be given preferential treatment? Now we have fast broadband just how much limited bandwidth should be allocated? Freeview has BBC1-4, ITV1234, Channel 4, 4+1, More4, Film4, 4Music, ITV1+1, ITV2+1, E4, E4+1, 5, 5+1, 5*, 5USA, CBBC, CBeebies, CITV, BBC News, BBC Parliament. That's 26 channels allocated to public service broadcasters and quite a few showing rehashes of the same material. Is this squeezing out variety?

Comment by Philip Lim on July 13, 2011 at 10:38

Perhaps we could all start a little closer to home, by getting involved in promoting I.T. to those without it. There is a quote from Nick Clegg on the website of Raceonline2012 - a campaign that I am involved with as a volunteer Digital Champion:

"The ‘Digital Revolution’ has the potential to deliver huge benefits to public services, to reduce social exclusion and to improve government transparency."
Quote from;
NICK CLEGG
Deputy Prime Minister
Source: http://raceonline2012.org/manifesto/1

Comment by Geoff Vincent on August 27, 2010 at 12:22

A good policy goal - and I think you could make a good case for the economic payback in terms of jobs generated and costs saved. But (especially at the moment) I don't think the government would put in the investment (tens of billions) needed to make it happen. The best hope is for policy to create a climate that encourages commercial investment.
Unfortunately analysts seem to be urging caution at the moment (see for example this from Analysys: http://www.analysysmason.com/About-Us/News/Insight/FTTH_roll-out_In...).
Sadly, there is a history of analyst/consulting reports in this country saying that investment 'cannot be justified' based on limited economic modelling... despite plenty of evidence that investment in infrastructure generates economic benefits (never mind the social benefits) that have not even been thought of at the time the investment was made. (PA Consulting was guilty of this when I was there many years ago.) Arguably we've missed opportunities of tens/hundreds of billions in this country, and held back social progress, through lack of vision and short term economic thinking which will inevitably be out of date by the time the investment is made (or, usually, not made).
The best hope is probably for government - with the support of others - to set out a framework and a vision that will (a) give confidence (b) provide some long term stability, which is what is needed to encourage investment. Given the long term nature of the investment, this probably needs to be robust enough to survive changes of government - and backed by some good technical/economic/market analysis which deals with questions of technical obsolesecence etc (which is what Analysys are worried about).

(There is some history of this... many years ago the DTI issed a paper called 'Phones on the Move' which led to the formation of new operators such as Orange, the first real challenge to the monoploy of BT, and more or less created the 'personal communications' industry we have today. The motives behind this were perhaps a little questionable, but the outcome was certainly effective.)
In the right circumstances government policy can have a profound impact on the market, even though government itself does not have enough resources and can only carry out a certain amount of 'leverage'/guidance/direction/confidence building. It's important, though it certainly isn't simple...!

Comment by Robert Ivor Wootton on August 27, 2010 at 10:46

I think that there should be free wifi access across the whole country with no black spots where there is no signal at all. However, we have not managed to do that with digital television yet. Pictures and sound still break up at times.
But I do think that an "information superhighway" should be funded/subsidised by the government and businesses given incentives to increase teleworking to reduce commuting by their employees.

Comment by James Graham on May 13, 2010 at 0:34

The Lib Dem - Conservative coalition agreement is currently silent on the issue of the Digital Economy Act. It strikes me that this is one area where a constructive amendment to the motion being discussed on Sunday could be helpful.

The amendment would have to be short - no more than a line. Would anyone care to come up with some text? I could have a go but I'm sure someone else here could do a better job.

Comment by Kim Spence-Jones on March 19, 2010 at 13:45

@Julian: I've started a discussion on how to move policy forward, but I'm not sure this group is the right place to start working. Perhaps it's better to use the discussion to decide where we should be "meeting". There's a list of other LibDem fora I've uncovered; I'm loath to start an alternative if the work is better done in an existing channel.

Comment by Kim Spence-Jones on March 19, 2010 at 11:06

I see that Sky is getting concerned by the BBC’s Project Canvas. And from their own self-interested point of view, they are right to be scared. I hope that their objections will not change the BBC’s course.

Project Canvas offers the prospect of breaking Sky’s stranglehold on the UK’s entertainment market. By controlling the hardware for service delivery, BSkyB has managed to lock out almost all competitors in the UK television market for several decades. I welcome any innovation which opens access to a wider range of providers. Stick to your guns, BBC!

Comment by Kim Spence-Jones on March 19, 2010 at 11:02

@Aaron. It may well be that you can survive with your 1Mb connection, but I am sure that it will be limiting the ways in which you operate. My company has a totally distributed office. I have a 20Mb connection at home, and I really notice when I visit co-workers with much slower links. The Internet speed definitely affects my working speed. It is my view that UK plc cannot afford to be working more slowly than its competitors.

Comment by Julian Huppert on March 6, 2010 at 15:26

Hi all,

I think we need to completely revamp out IT policy to consider all these issues - it's great, but outdated now.

I'm happy to pitch it to FPC types, and if elected to push within the Parliamentary Party - if others can help out with the details!

As for IT knowledge in Shadow cabinet .... I used to work for a software company, and now work in computational biology ...

Julian
PPC for Cambridge

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