In case you somehow missed the media frenzy, the final version of the Digital Britain report was published yesterday. After reading some of the media reports, I decided to read as much of the detail of the report as I could to see what was actually proposed.

Firstly I need to make a few disclaimers. Obviously the views expressed here are my own and not that of my employer – Consumer Focus (if you want the organisation’s view, you can see it here). I’ve also not read every paragraph in the 240 page report – some parts nearly sent me to sleep, so I skipped past them to some of the more interesting sections.

Overall, I can’t help but feel a little bit disappointed with the report. To me it doesn’t seem to go far enough – although a guaranteed 2Mbps broadband connection to every home in the UK makes a good headline, it’s poor compared to other countries such as South Korea (which is rolling out 1Gbps connections). It also skirts around some issues such as copyright fair use and leaves a lot to chance.

The report outlines 2 phases of broadband development in the UK. The first is the Universal Service Commitment (USC) which aims to provide a base to the whole country; the second is the Next Generation Broadband Network (NGB) which will provide for the future.

Universal Service Commitment (USC)

Digital Britain outlines its intention to provide every home in the UK with a minimum of 2 Mbps broadband by 2012. This will be part funded by the production of the NGB networks, with the rest funded through the underspend in the Digital Switchover budget. Initial thoughts are that this is great – everyone in the UK will have broadband of a ‘satisfactory’ quality. However, things soon start to fall apart.

Countries like South Korea are currently achieving 50 Mbps as a minimum, with some places getting as high as a 1 Gbps connection. When put in this context, 2 Mbps is exceptionally poor. Also, when you delve into a bit more detail, it turns out that this speed is actually optimistic.

Some homes will not be able to get broadband though traditional means, and so the Government is going to rely on mobile networks and satellite to provide the USC in these areas. The report suggests that 2 Mbps is unlikely for these houses, and connections of between 1 and 1.5 Mbps is more accurate. So actually, a 2 Mbps USC isn’t really correct.

Next Generation Broadband (NGB)

This is the next phase in broadband development and aims to provide broadband speeds of around 50 Mbps by using technologies such as Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) and Fibre to the Home (FTTH). Digital Britain expects that market investment will fund this deployment and anticipates that it will reach approximately two thirds of the population.

Assuming BT and the mobile networks do reach this target, that leaves about a third of the UK back on the not quite 2 Mbps USC broadband. This quite obviously is not acceptable, so a fund is being set up to provide NGB to this final third (called The Final Third Project).

The Final Third will be funded by a 50p per line per month levy on all fixed lines from next year. Contrary to some reports, this includes residential copper lines (like your BT phone line), business copper, ISDN and cable telephony lines (like those provided by Virgin Media). You will not have to pay this levy for mobile phones as they already pay license fees for network upgrades.

After all of this, it is expected that 90% of the population will be covered by NGB, leaving a poor 10% with USC speeds.

Illegal file sharing

This is of course a big bone of contention among many people. The interim report issued in January suggested the creation of a Digital Rights Agency which would be responsible for tracking illegal file sharers. This final version has moved away from this proposal and aims to stick with an industry lead effort, although supervised by Ofcom the industry regulator.

The report outlines a commitment to reduce illegal file sharing by 70-80%. This is a huge commitment, so they aren’t just leaving it to chance. If the industry effort of writing letters to account holders does not reduce numbers significantly within 12 months, Ofcom will be able to force ISPs to introduce ‘technical measures’. These might include blocking of sites, protocols, ports, bandwidth capping (speed and data transfer), bandwidth shaping and content identification and filtering.

However, for this to happen, Ofcom will need to ask Parliament to legislate.

Copyright fair use

Unfortunately this important issue gets all of a one paragraph mention in the document which makes no commitment to resolve the situation. As a result, it remains illegal to copy music you already own to your mp3 player.

Conclusion

As you can see, it is a bit disappointing. The USC isn’t quite the 2 Mbps they promised, NGB relies on the market to do the right thing, no clear direction on illegal file sharing and no movement at all on fair use.

I’ve not gone though everything in this post; there are a lot of other planned actions including the digital radio switchover, tax relief for video game makers, and the digital public service programme. Maybe next time!

Image courtesy of Media Guardian and Wordle.