Welcome to Switched On, your whistle-stop tour around the big news stories breaking in digital communications this month. Forward this email to a friend
 

Digital Britain - a vision The long-awaited and much-heralded 'Digital Britain' interim report was released last week and in it the Minister for Communications Lord Carter outlined his plan of how government can help secure Britain's place at the forefront of the global digital economy. In all there were 22 recommendations but the real headlines came - unsurprisingly - around Broadband and perhaps more surprisingly around Digital Radio. Lord Carter sketched out a 'universal service commitment' to broadband under which all homes would enjoy download speeds of at least 2 Mbit/s, a level of service that supports watching video content online, possibly by 2012. This obviously comes at a cost: Enders estimates up to £3.5bn to provide fixed line broadband to homes that don't currently get that level of service. However, it could cost less than £120m to cover the not-spots with mobile broadband. On radio DAB was endorsed as the primary distribution platform for radio, and a switchover date of 2015, where all national stations would be broadcast exclusively on DAB, was identified. There was lots more interesting stuff in the report including a mooted 'rights agency' paid for ISPs (and therefore by consumers) which is the latest attempt to sort out illegal file sharing. Superfast broadband features heavily and will be considered by a Lord Carter appointed 'strategy group'. Lest this all sounds yet like more wonkery it is worth noting that Lord Carter has given himself a very short timetable to deliver on his recommendations. The final report is due by summer and commentators have identified that Lord Carter's enthusiasm for 'due process' will be balanced by the need for 'due pace'. The report then provides a spur and focus to these debates. Download 'Realising our digital potential'»

When is speed not speed? Just before Lord Carter's report was published came one from Ofcom which can only have given him and his team a headache. As the rumors swirled around that one of the headlines of his report was a universal service obligation set at 2Mbit/s Ofcom's report confirmed what has been said in the industry for some time: consumers are receiving broadband at speeds significantly slower than those marketed by their internet service providers. One in five households that has been offered a download speed of 'up to' 8 megabits per second is getting less than 2mbps. The 8mbps broadband packages are the most popular - 64 per cent of households with internet access have them - but Ofcom found the average speed for these homes was 3.6mbps. Some internet service providers have been rebuked for misleading advertising. The Advertising Standards Authority last month upheld a complaint against Tiscali, the UK's fifth largest broadband company. Some of Tiscali's press advertising about its 'up to' 8mbps broadband packages was found not clearly to tell consumers that actual speeds could be much less. Find out more about Intellect's Digital Communications Market Group»

Twitter treat And so to Twitter - for the uninitiated, the micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length - which has had mixed reviews since its launch in 2007. Some pundits criticise its banality citing 'tweets' on what people have been having for dinner or are watching on TV. Whilst this criticism has rumbled on the consumer has been voting with their feet, heavily, which has led to some unbelievable growth numbers: traffic to Twitter has increased by 974 per cent year on year according to Hitwise UK, while the amount of traffic it sends to other websites has increased 30-fold over the last 12 months. Furthermore the social network was ranked as the 291st most-visited website in the week ending 17 January 2009, while a year ago it ranked 2,953rd. Twitter is also having some interesting effects on the way news is reported and disseminated. The picture of the plane that crash landed, floating on an icy Hudson River that was used on the cover of every American and British newspapers the next day was taken and posted by a twitter user. Her accompanying tweet? 'There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.' Take part in the convergence conversation - everyone's talking about it»

HD to help bolster CE And finally, should the snow outside, wild cat strikes and an economy now officially in recession be making you feel gloomy about the retailer sector, here is a note from CE market research specialists GfK who say that despite the tremors currently being felt across the whole consumer durables industry, there are still many manufacturers and retailers whose products can look forward to consistent growth. "The 2009 prognosis for the UK Consumer Electronics market is not as gloomy as some would have us believe", they say. The note continues: "at the centre of the market is the Flat TV which must be a fixture in more than half the nation's 26 million living rooms at the very least, with cumulative sales since launch already approaching 20 million. That still leaves at least 10 million to add. The steep fall in the average price of Total Full HD TVs (from £125 in September 2007 to only £920 a year later), has allowed increased prominence for extra large models in the 40" to 46" category with a small proportion being 50" and over." This should be good news for manufacturers and retailers wrestling with a fall in the value of sterling, the removal of trade credit insurance and declining consumer confidence. What happens at Intellect's Consumer Electronics Council?» Click here to view John Edwards, chair of Intellect's Consumer Electronics Council talk about the council's aims and objectives, and what the benefits are for joining»