Despite what my colleagues may think, I really do make an effort to keep my desk clear. It’s becoming increasingly difficult. The government is simply producing so much paper on telecoms at the moment. There are no less than five meaty consultations, a select committee inquiry and, lets not forget, the mighty tome that is the Digital Britain report, (along with its little brother, the Digital Britain implementation plan), all stacked up and teetering over into my neighbours territory. I have added first and second draft responses. On Friday, the whole stack of paper fell on my foot. It hurt.
So is my bruised toe worth it? Or, more specifically, is all this frantic policy making actually producing the end results we hoped for? Well, from a legislative perspective, things are definitely moving along well. We are hearing reassuring noises that despite the upcoming general election, the digital economy bill is taking shape broadly as we hoped it would and there isn’t much appetite for playing around with it in parliament. The much hyped “broadband tax’”is likely to make it into the finance bill. An additional statutory duty for Ofcom (“to promote efficient investment”) is almost certainly on the way. If they can work out what “efficient” actually means, this can only be good. Although, DCMS seems to have got jealous and decided that it wants to add a duty for Ofcom as well, probably without consulting. Anything BIS can do DCMS can do better. Whitehall in action.
On the negative side, there appears to be, much to industries concern, clear momentum for ISPs to be required to cut off their customers for sharing files illegally. I have great respect for right-holders. In another life, perhaps I could have created some content worth possessing the rights to… But the fact remains that industry, or ISPs, are effectively being contracted out as a law enforcement agency. There is absolutely no direct benefit, or proposed recompense, for them under these proposals. Instead, they incur huge additional admin costs and may well lose revenue as well. Right holders share none of this burden. That is apart from the fact that the whole system is likely to be unenforceable and likely to be superseded by the Telecoms framework directive, which, dogged by infamous “Amendement 138″ controversy, is currently grinding its way through Brussels as we speak.
We also wonder where all the non-legislative (or partially legislative) proposals are going. Already, large elements of the Digital Britain spectrum modernisation programme are probably going to need to be looked at again. T-Mobile and Orange, unless the competition commission intervenes, are to merge. This means that Kip Meeks valuable work, which Mandleson recently got involved with and was near to completion, will most likely be delayed and revised. While the government hasn’t missed its target yet, the ‘arms length’ entity responsible for procuring the capabilities to deliver a 2Mb/s USC currently has no CEO and hasn’t been formally established. We hope that whoever is appointed will talk to industry in a language it understands. Not quite time to worry, but the way the procurement is run is crucial.
Then there are the Tories. We still don’t really know (apart from the short term point scoring we saw immediately post publication) where they stand. The vaunted Review of the Creative Industries appears no closer to publication. This could all be for nothing if they choose to take a different direction on all these issues. Apart from the fact that we are last starting to get some coherency and traction on these issues in Government, this would mean a new wodge of paper hitting my desk. And a visit from HR about health and safety and Intellects ‘clear desk’ policy. I think I will just blame the government. I normally do.
Technorati Tags: BIS, Broadband, DCMS, digital britain, filesharing, Ofcom, P2P, Spectrum
