Using the internet in our everyday lives is gathering a momentum from which there is no way back and sharing personal data can bring huge benefits for consumers in the form of more personalised services and lower prices. The problem that our new research project has highlighted is that consumers have a low awareness of how their data is collected – while, in an apparently contradictory view, they say that controlling their personal data is their own responsibility. Does this mean that consumers believe they should be in control, but are actually unable to carry this out? I’m not yet sure. We need to ask more questions to get to the bottom of what’s really happening. But, for me the bottom line should always be that consumers make an informed choice about what they share – and what they get in return. So companies need to explain the benefits that can result from sharing data, and tell us in a straightforward way how they go about collecting, using and protecting our data – before we decide to hand over the details of our lives.

At the moment consumers seem to be saying that they know that they are making a trade-off in allowing their data to be used; but they don’t know what the trade-off that they are making is.

Bob Warner, Communications Consumer Panel Member

The Government's declared aim is to ensure that the UK has the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015. So far, there has been no explanation of what is meant by ‘best' or how will be evaluated, but a ‘balanced scorecard' is being developed.

At the heart of the Government's approach is the commitment in the Comprehensive Spending review to £830 million of public money between now and 2017 to support the roll-out of broadband in rural areas. The first £530 million of this will come from the underspend on Digital Switchover. There will then be a further £150 million a year from 2013 through the BBC licence fee settlement.

There will be four trials of the delivery of next generation broadband in rural areas and these trials are being funded through Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK).

Government is pushing with Ofcom for a lowering of investment costs in NGA through something called Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA), allowing access by new entrants to the infrastructure of BT and ultimately other organisations such as the electricity and water networks. BT is due to publish reference offers for access to ducts and poles in January & May 2011 respectively.

Another important part of Government policy concerns release of spectrum.  Ed Vaizey wants to see the  earliest possible release of 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum and believes that we are now on course for this to be auctioned in 2012. In addition, the Government has made a commitment to release 500MHz of spectrum below 5GHZ currently held by the public sector over the next ten years.

Government plans to publish a Broadband Strategy Document in early December 2010 which will provide more detail on policy.

"We are emphasising a ‘Big Society' approach to broadband at the conference. Neither ‘Big Company', nor ‘Big Government' can fully tackle the need for investment in areas that are less attractive commercially, especially the Final Third. It needs a combined effort - private sector, public sector and us, as citizens in our communities."

In January and October 2009, the Communications Consumer Panel produced two reviews of local community schemes for the delivery of next generation access and, throughout the two days of this event, there were constant references to various local schemes at different stages of development including:

On behalf of INCA, Adrian Wooster made a presentation on the Joint Operating Network (JON) Exchange, opened last week by Minister Ed Vaizey. This is designed to provide a single source of access to alternative access networks.

Reference was made to a grant from the Nominet Trust to INCA for a Big Society Broadband Support Project.

There were 56 applications for the trials and originally it was intended to select three areas, but in the event four were chosen. Each area will be allocated around £5-10 million. The first pilot procurement will start early next year.

The four trial areas are as follows:

The surprise choice was Herefordshire and it was claimed that so far all the project has is "a blank sheet of paper" which prompted one failed bidder to wonder how it had won.

Robert Sullivan explained that these four trials only represented "the first wave" and that there will be further waves, but he could give no timescales for such further projects.

He described the next stage of the company's investment programme which is to upgrade the whole of the network to provide up to 100 Mbps by mid 2012. This 100 Mbps option is available for £45 a month as a stand alone service or £35 a month as part of a bundle.

Dale Barnes explained that VM wishes to provide services beyond its current network coverage and described a trial in Crumlin in South Wales which involves using Western Power's infrastructure to deliver fibre to rural areas. The fibre provides two wave lengths to VM and two GPON wave lengths to other Distribution Network Operators.  In response to a question from the floor, however, he made it clear that the company has no intention of opening up its main cable network to use by other operators.

Meanwhile a major concern of Virgin Media is the current advertising rules in relation to broadband speeds being represented as up to X Mbps.  This is seen as unfair to VM since its typical speeds are close to its up to speeds (and are published quarterly now) whereas, for DSL competitors, actual speeds fall so far below advertised up to speeds. The company is running a campaign with a web site called Stop The Broadband Con.

The BT service - branded as BT Infinity - has currently passed more than 3 million homes and is on course to pass 4 million by the end of the year and some 10 million by 2012. He claimed that this programme would mean that by 2012 as a proportion of homes passed nationwide the UK would then be ahead of countries like France and the Netherlands.

So far, around 38,000 customers have actually been connected and the company claims that orders are running at over 4,000 a week.

Currently all BT's roll-out is fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) but the company is committed to around 25% of the roll-out being fibre to the home (FFTH). Three FTTH trials are being held in Bradwell Abbey (Milton Keynes), Highams Park (London) and Ebbsfleet (Kent).

Bill Murphy also spoke about the public private partnerships involving BT in both Cornwall and Northern Ireland.

Finally he mentioned the Race To Infinity initiative which is inviting local people to vote to receive fibre to the home in their community. The scheme began on 4 October 2010 and will close on 31 December 2010.  Over 200,000 votes have been cast so far and there will be five winners.

This was the third such annual event, following conferences in Manchester (2008) and Leeds (2009), and I have participated in all of them. Most of the people there were techie types and local government officials, so I was the only person there with a specifically consumer perspective.

The mood was very up-beat with a strong feeling that, in the last 12 months, real progress has been made with the roll-out of next generation broadband in the UK as a result of major investments from BT and Virgin Media, announcements of four rural trials by BDUK, and development of a whole variety of local community intiatives.

The conference saw the launch by INCA of a 24-page booklet entitled "Beyond Broadband" written by Pauline Rigby. In the course of the event, I chaired a breakout workshop on digital inclusion.

Over the next few days, I'll be blogging with more detail on NextGen 10.

There was also a widespread view that transparency by itself would not allay all net neutrality concerns, particularly where there are barriers to switching between internet service providers. This was one of the areas the Panel highlighted in its response and we are pleased to see it has been noted by the Commission.

Transparency is about ensuring that consumers have the right information about the traffic management policies employed by internet service providers. But this information is complicated and difficult for even the most tech-savvy consumers to understand. It also relies on consumers making a decision to switch package or provider on the basis of traffic management policies. However, traffic management is just one of a range of factors consumers consider when choosing provider. There are also barriers to switching that need to be overcome, including lack of choice for some, particularly rural, consumers and the increasing prevalence of bundling.

So to get transparency right we need to know more about how consumers use information, and the role of information about traffic management as one of a wide range of factors consumers may consider when making a decision about broadband.

We also need to make sure that information is presented in a way that is meaningful and comparable - possibly in terms of positive commitments about what services consumers will be able to access and when, rather than the kind of ‘up to' model adopted in advertising of broadband speeds. We look forward to seeing these issues explored in more detail as the Commission continues its net neutrality debate.

We were also pleased to see that some of the citizen issues had been highlighted, including privacy and freedom of expression. However, we would like to see a more comprehensive assessment of the potential implications for citizens as well as consumers, including the impact on provision of online public services.

And we all intuitively understand why that is: we have all got our own experience of how frustrating it is when your complaint is not taken seriously, when your service continues to be disrupted, when your charges are incorrect etc...

However consumer complaints in the communications area is an area that still leaves a lot to be desired. I think there are two main areas that need to be resolved.

Firstly, with the complexity of current telecommunications contracts and bundles, it is very difficult for any consumer to make an informed choice about what the best option is for them. In this context, it makes sense to ensure that consumers have an overall picture of how individual companies are performing by giving them a straightforward comparator that we are all familiar with from e-bay: other consumers' level of satisfaction with their provider and the level of complaints other consumers have about sellers?

Unfortunately there is no way of knowing how individual telecommunications companies perform on this issue, because they do not have to publish their complaints/total customer accounts ratio and there is no agreed definition of a complaint. Both problems can be overcome if there is the will do tackle them. An article in Broadcast Magazine on 11 October pointed out that "TV licence fee staff have been issued with a manual advising that customers who use the words "idiots", "shambles" or "useless" are likely to be making a complaint.. The article also says that "Staff are advised to look out for particular "keywords" suggesting a customer is protesting about some aspect [....]. These include: "compensation", "complaint", "disgraceful", "disgusted", "incompetent", "appalling", "furious", "intimidation", "mistakes", "harassment", "rude", "threatening", "outrageous", "upsetting", "unacceptable" and swear words. So maybe this BBC staff document can help solve the problem? A solution would benefit both consumers as well as those telecommunications providers who take customer service and complaints handling very seriously and who would be able to show a good track record in this area.

Secondly, if a telecommunications provider does not resolve your complaint, you have the right to take it to the next level, where it can be independently resolved, the ADR Scheme. Every telecoms company has to sign up with a provider of this independent service, and because of historical reasons, there are two...the Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman (Otelo), and the Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme (CISAS). Both systems have different operating modes, both have their strengths and weaknesses. For example, one provides consumers with assistance in formulating their complaint whilst the other one does not. Do consumers get the same justice or different justice depending on which ADR provider their case goes to? Nobody seems to know for sure, and nobody has evidence that that a system with two redress companies is beneficial for consumers.

Ofcom published its consultation " Review of Alternative Dispute Resolution Schemes" on 20 October 2010. I hope that consumer representatives are writing in - this is an area that is too important for consumers to lose sight of and this consultation presents an opportunity to address the issues outlined above. If this opportunity is not used, than there won't be another one for quite a few years to come.... 

There should be protection against slamming

Customers should be well-informed on implications

The processes should be quick and reliable

Continuity of service should be assured

The processes should promote retail competition

The processes should work across sales channels

I explained that, utilising these principles, the Panel generally favours gaining provider-processes for switching rather than losing-provider processes.

Understandably there were different views from the companies represented on the relative advantages of gaining provider-led and losing provider-led processes with BT concerned that the Panel should weigh the benefits to consumers of the ability of a company to offer bespoke offers to departing customers.

More generally, there was a view that the current Ofcom consultation on switching focuses too narrowly on GPL vs LPL processes instead of looking at wider migration issues.

The Government's decision not to charge consumers who appeal against a notification for online copyright infringement is good news. Any system that accuses people of illegal online activity must be fair and clear, and must be based on sound evidence of wrongdoing before any action is taken. The notification should also make it very clear that people have the right to appeal, and not bury it in the small print.

The Panel does have concerns, though, about how consumer-friendly the appeals process will be. We believe that it has to be simple and easy to access for anyone to use. An independent third party to advise consumers on the process, and how to gather evidence to support their appeal will also be essential. And what happens if someone is successful in winning their appeal? Some level of compensation would seem reasonable in the circumstances.

The buzz word in the UK debate is transparency. Consumers are using increasing amounts of data, lots of it time sensitive. So Internet Service Providers (ISPs) take steps to manage the data flow - or traffic - across their networks. They might prioritise or delay certain types of traffic, or cap the amount of data consumers can use at a certain time. They might even decide to prioritise their own content - particularly those ISPs who are starting to offer TV services over the internet - or ask content providers to pay to have their content prioritised.

Many argue that this is ok as long as the process is transparent - in other words that consumers are told about the particularly techniques the ISPs use and can decide to switch if they aren't happy. But this is complicated information, even for the more tech-savvy consumers. Will people really be able to make meaningful comparisons using this kind of information? Also, for transparency to work consumers have to be able to switch. A tall order if, in common with many rural consumers, you only have a choice of one provider. Difficult too for all those people whose broadband package is part of a bundle or whose ISP changes the terms and conditions mid-way through a contract.

We also think transparency misses out some of the important citizen dimensions of the problem. While enabling consumer choice is important, it won't necessarily protect the things we consider important to society as a whole. Public services are a good example. There are two ways in which public services could be negatively affected by traffic management. They could suffer from being in the shadows of more appealing commercial services that take advantage of paid-for, prioritised service.  Thus public services become less attractive - for instance, NHS eHealth versus private eHealth. They could also be actively discriminated against - particularly if those services are high bandwidth, like iPlayer or future eHealth services.

Getting to the bottom of these issues will be complicated. Different people will have different needs at different times, and what is good for the individual may end up having a negative impact on things we all value. To get to the bottom of it we need to have the debate based on a real understanding of the views and experiences of consumers and citizens. There won't be any easy answers, but this approach will allow us to really understand the nature of the problem.

  In July 2009 Ofcom published research showing the very considerable gap between what was advertised and what was experienced by most consumers. On average the speeds experienced by consumers are now shown by Ofcom's July 2010 research to be less than half what is claimed - even worse that the July 2009 result. What is the point of quoting a theoretical 'up-to' maximum when in practice no-one actually achieves it?

 Ofcom's introduction of a new voluntary code of practice commits providers to giving consumers more accurate information about the speed they are likely to achieve in practice. The ASA is also reviewing the way that broadband is advertised, and the Panel has had discussions with both to ensure the consumer perspective is taken into account.

 The Panel Chair Anna Bradley also wrote to Ed Vaizey, the Culture Minister, highlighting this issue and seeking a more consumer-friendly solution along the lines of paying for what you get rather than paying for hollow promises which the providers know are unachievable.

 It was obvious to the Panel that consumers were very unhappy about the gap between the promise and the reality, but the Virgin-ICM research gives us a solid research-based foundation for just how irritated and confused consumers actually are, which gives us a platform for applying further pressure. Although the publication is primarily commercially motivated, it has nevertheless helped to highlight a ridiculous situation.

 We now have proof that consumers mistrust the claims made, are confused about what the claims mean, have inadequate information to make informed choices, and have a very low degree of confidence in the whole industry. This should be a wake-up call to all providers.

 I would like to see the dreaded words 'Up to' to be consigned to history, and for more honest advertising to be used, indicating the typical speed that a consumer might experience on average. There may some difficulties in agreeing the definition of the words 'typical' and 'average', but providers now have a commercial imperative, as well as a moral one, to work through these difficulties, agree a new approach, and try to restore a degree of consumer confidence in the industry.

The proposals are really quite different from the proposals put forward by Kip Meek, the Independent Spectrum Broker, which were very detailed. This announcement gives Ofcom much more scope to decide how the auctions should be conducted.

It will also mean that Ofcom will need to do the hard work of assessing the impacts on competition and finding a way forward that will be acceptable to all the mobile operators. A tough call!

The Panel will be keeping a close eye on progress to make sure that the consumer perspective is right at the heart of this debate.

You can read the Digital UK Annual Report here.

The latest Minimum Income Standard report, which gauges what members of the public think people need to achieve a "socially acceptable standard of living", found that a computer and an internet connection at home are no longer viewed as luxuries but as essentials. They are vital for all working-age households to enable people "to participate in society", both to access job opportunities and to get discounts on services, and everyone should be able to afford them.

This trend is only likely to increase as more, and more vital, services are delivered solely online, or provided offline in a way that penalises users through higher cost or lower quality. Already some of the best deals in areas like shopping, banking and insurance are only available online, and it is likely that online delivery of public services will also be on the agenda - moving transactions online has the potential to deliver considerable cost savings for a cash-strapped government.

Look in a bit more detail at those who are not online though and the picture is more complicated. Financial barriers are rarely the only - or indeed the main - reason people don't get the internet at home. Many fail to see how the benefits of the internet would make a difference to their lives. Even those who do are likely to need considerable support to get online and get the most from the internet, including help to choose and set up equipment, learn how to use the internet and possibly also a computer, and to keep themselves safe once they are online.

We have recently published a consumer framework for digital participation, supported by considerable consumer research, which brings together all the different things people need. We hope this will be a useful resource for all of those who agree, as we do, with the findings of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation research and want everyone to have access to the benefits the internet can bring. 

Under the previous government, a deal was brokered by the Independent Spectrum Broker Kip Meek, designed to free up capacity on the networks. The deal is sitting on the new Government's books as a statutory instrument, which means it could be ready to go. However, it is controversial, with BT and a number of the mobile operators unhappy with the terms of the deal. The problems aren't going to go away though, and while there is no perfect solution the status quo is clearly not in the interests of consumers.

In last week's budget George Osbourne announced that a decision on spectrum would be made before Summer recess on 21 July, so hopefully we will soon have some answers. The hope is that whatever decision the new coalition government takes, they will make sure that the interests of consumers as well as industry are central. And, while it is likely to be a difficult task, the prospect of a little extra revenue for the treasury from any future spectrum auctions may provide some motivation - especially given all the talk of austerity and cuts.

*Dongles are also sometimes called USB modems. They are a small piece of hardware that connects to a laptop or desktop computer and plugs the user in to a wireless network.

The extent to which regulators have a legal basis to intervene in these matters has been controversial both sides of the pond, but in Europe the new EC framework does provide some tools for Ofcom to use, for example in providing guarantees that consumers should have a certain level of quality of service, or that there should be transparency requirements to ensure that every consumer has the information needed to choose between rival network providers. Whether these powers will be used, as the document is at pains to describe, is a matter for government and legislators.

Will the debate get beyond a narrow clique and demand the attention of a broader public, thus making Government action likely? not on the current evidence: There are almost no complaints about traffic shaping. This may mean we should all relax about the issues, but equally this could simply mean that they are fiendishly complex and ill-understood by consumers, who therefore need protecting. Either way, we can expect this bundle of issues to preoccupy more people - and generate more complaints - as people become more aware of the issues. (Paradoxically perhaps, since awareness is part of the solution). During the summer a separate EC consultation is expected and the issue will gradually come to a wider public.

Prediction: if consumers' enjoyment of football is impacted by traffic management, we can expect a much more vigourous debate. But we are a way off that yet, and those of us dragged away from television coverage of World Cup 2010 to read this stuff will remain a very small minority.

Since then, the coalition government have announced that Martha Lane Fox will be the new ‘UK Digital Champion'. Her role is similar to the one she played under the previous government, and will include advising and challenging the Government, the wider public sector and industry on making faster progress on getting more people and more services online. A new development is that Martha will now sit on the Efficiency Board, co-chaired by Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude, and Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, and which oversees the Government's Efficiency and Reform programme.

Martha's role will be particularly challenging in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where responsibility for delivery of many public services is devolved. As well as influencing government in Westminster she will also need to work closely with the devolved governments who will be key to getting users in Scotland, and the other nations, online and delivering the kinds of online services that the UK's devolved citizens need and will value.