Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) will drive forward the Universal Service Commitment to deliver 2Mbps to every household by 2012 and - if the proposal for a landline duty wins Parliamentary approval before the General Election - it will manage the spend of the £1billion Next Generation Fund to deliver next generation broadband to 90% of the country by 2017.

National conversion to digital television has risen from 66% to 89% since 2005. Actual switchover has now occurred in four TV regions covering 4.8 million homes which is 18.2% of the UK. The main consumer issues so far have been retuning and regional overlaps of signals.

The Help Scheme delivered by Eaga  - which is open to those over 75 or on certain allowances - was budgeted on the assumption of a take-up rate of 65%. In fact, so far, the scheme has only delivered around 275,000 installations so that currently actual take-up is averaging 18%. This suggests that overall people are finding switchover easier than was feared, but there are a small proportion of strugglers and a tiny proportion who - in spite of all the advance publicity and advice - only act once switchover actually happens.

The Panel asked detailed questions on the experience of the strugglers and on other issues like accessibility of equipment, but overall we are pleased that switchover is going so smoothly. Ever since the Panel was created six years ago, DSO has been a significant issue for us and we have been particularly active in promoting the development and delivery of the Help Scheme and the Digital Outreach programme, but it looks as if we can now adopt more of a simple monitoring role.

The Panel had made a submission to the Department of Business' consultation on the topic, which you can read HERE. We reiterated the concerns we had made in that document. In particular: that the process must be 'fair, reasonable and proportionate for consumers'; that there must be proper safeguards to protect consumers in relation to both the notifications process and whether any technical measures should be applied; and the need to recognize that the costs of the system will affect not just rights holders and ISPs but also consumers. Finally, since the proposed Code of Conduct will contain much of the detail of the system, we said we expect consumer interest bodies to be very much involved in discussions about that Code.

We also had a visit from the Department of Business to catch up on discussions about implementation of the 2 Mb/s universal service commitment. The Panel wanted to know what had been happening and when we might hope to see the promised procurement agency established. We pointed to the need to keep the consumer interest at the heart of the, now quite technical  discussions. It will matter to consumers what 'universal' really means; who will get the USC and who won't. And it will matter what 2 Mb/s means; is it 'up to' 2 Mb, or something more meaningful for consumers, such as the ability to stream video content. We will be talking further with BIS about these issues.

 We also talked to Ofcom about its Draft Annual Alan, which the Panel is very pleased to see included lots of the things we have been talking with Ofcom about during the last year, including work on switching for bundles and mobile coverage. but we had some other points which we wanted to raise which we will be submitting as a more formal response to the consultation.

 Finally, we put the finishing touches to our own work plan which we will be publishing as a draft in the next month and inviting stakeholders to discuss with us - watch this space.

Extract from the Communications Consumer Panel submission to BIS on the Government consultation on raising the level of fines for silent calls.

The debate was started by Kip Meek who was participating in his capacity as Chair of Ingenious Consulting but inevitably he drew on the work of the Broadband Stakeholder Group which he also chairs. He was doubtful of the value of the Government pursuing a universal broadband commitment of 2 Mbit/s ("I'm agnostic on the merits of universality") and sceptical about the need at this stage for public intervention in the roll-out of next generation broadband ("I have a hunch that it is premature to have targets").

Anna supported the notion of a universal broadband commitment and specifically addressed the questions:

1) What is the universal broadband commitment for?

2) Will the commitment ensure that everyone has 2 Mbit/s by 2012?

3) Will 2 Mbit/s be enough?

4) Will this solve the digital divide?

You can read the text of Ann'a remarks here.

Several members of the Communications Consumer Panel were present at the Oxford Media Convention and the Chair Anna Bradley spoke at one of the seminars.

Vintage rockstars seem to be wheeled out with increasing regularity to raise awareness and lobby on communications policy these days, particularly where intellectual property is discussed: Westminster wonks have become used to rubbing shoulders with Undertones lead singer Feargal Sharkey  - who famously jammed with Culture Secretary Andy Burnham last year. Billy Bragg is a less familiar figure on the policy circuit. But as Parliament gets to grips with the Digital Economy Bill, he was the headline act at a gathering of media stakeholders gathered at the Westminster Forum to discuss The Future of Content Online: micropayments, digital delivery, and disintermediation.

Bragg, who represents the loosely organised lobby group: the Featured Artists Coalition, set out his concerns that the proposed measures in the Digital Economy Bill would have the impact of alienating consumers, whilst doing little to stop piracy. Open about his self interest - he said that the typical 8% of sales deals that artists get should be replaced with 50% deals now that music is delivered online - Bragg also argued that criminalising consumers would backfire on an industry that faces stiff competition from games, DVDs and other forms of entertainment.

At a time when the content industry generally is tantalisingly close to sealing a deal with Government to protect IP with the help of ISPs, Bragg and the FAC find themselves in an interesting but potentially uncomfortable position. They have broken ranks with their traditional representatives at the record companies, and ‘rights holders' who have been lobbying Government for tighter IP protection, no longer speak with one voice.

Bragg's position was opposed by Richard Mollet, director of public affairs at the BPI, who set out the detail of the decline in sales of physical music products and the alleged impact on sales of the rise of illicit file sharing. He argued that intermediaries such as the record companies he represents remain a key sector in the UK's creative economy and that the Government is right to protect their model.

The other speakers, from Universal Studios, Google, the Digital Rights Group and several lawyers and consultants described a picture where the role of intermediaries - such as record companies, broadcasters and publishers is getting more, rather than less confused. The range of services they offer: from promotion, to packaging and distribution, to protection of IP and collection of revenue is itself being disaggregated and there is intense competition among new models of packaging, promotion and distribution - and experimentation by artists who want to establish direct links with consumers on the internet.

At a time of such intense experimentation there was real doubt expressed about whether government should be involved in protecting any one business model. What became clear however, is that this debate is very much a squabble between interested parties such as artists, ISPs and intermediaries. The voices of consumers are barely heard.

One constructive suggestions on the way forward came from Steven Morrison of All 3 Media who gave a presentation on how to protect UK content in the new environment. His suggestions: to get pay tv platforms to pay to distribute PSB channels, and impose a levy on digital recorders are certainly worth looking at, but do not feature prominently in the current round of government proposals.

It is difficult for wonks of a certain generation - including myself - not to be seduced by guitar stars of a certain era  - but I couldn't help being left with the impression that the really rocking gig was elsewhere: in Parliament with the discussion of the Digital Economy Bill. And with the file swappers in homes, playgrounds, colleges and pubs, up and down the country. Many of them have probably never heard Billy Bragg sing, and whilst they do still get their Teenage Kicks from music and films - many of them are quite used to doing so without paying intermediaries or artists.

We also began the process of building our workplan for next year. We took a regular six monthly review of work on consumer policy and enforcement. We asked for these six monthly overview reports so we can keep our eyes on the entirety of the programme and identify the specifics that we want to know more about. On this occasion we asked to have some more information about work that it is proposed on rollover contracts. Alongside this report we also had a six monthly update from payphone plus. We also had two papers from Ofcom on European issues; one covering the digital agenda and a second the general consumer protection agenda. Finally we took a paper on some potential future issues relating to public expectations of the internet and had a technology demonstration which helped to bring us up to speed on some imminent market developments.

We gave some advice to Ofcom on all of these issues, but we also considered our own draft workplan on the back of our discussions. The result was a much longer list of possible issues for next year than we have resource to address. Now we begin the task of prioritising our own work according to the criteria we have established which are: What is the scale of the issue? and Can the Panel make a difference?  The workplan will be out for wider consultation in February 2010.

Finally, we agreed a process for appraising the performance of the Panel as a whole, and for each of the members. We want to ensure that we keep ourselves on our toes by reflecting on what we have done, but at the same time we are anxious not to introduce a heavy weight of bureaucracy which will detract from our ability to deliver advice. The result is a process which is much more arduous at the time at which members might come up for re-appointment and includes third party feedback, with a lighter touch approach in other years. Having said this we would encourage anyone who wants to feedback on the Panel's performance to do so whenever they have something to say, in whatever way seems most appropriate; it can only help us to improve what we do and the way we do it.

In my case, the conversation was deliberately misleading with a claim that they were ‘working very closely with BT ‘ and that they had noticed that we were being charged the wrong rate on our BT account and wanted to rectify this by moving the account to a cheaper rate.  The overall aim was to imply that we were talking to an agent of our current provider and that any change would be with that same provider.  But, not surprisingly, the caller was unable to give the name of the contact person for the account, the type of account we hold, or to quote accurately the amount we were paying - despite having apparently noticed that it was too high.

Other ‘slams' include taking an order for a broadband line but switching the telephone account at the same time, asking a customer to sign for information but then switching the consumer to a different provider and even forging a customer's signature on a contract without the customer's consent.

Ofcom has been consulting on proposals to clamp down on slamming and other forms of mis-selling in the fixed-line telecoms market. There most recent consultation suggested a two stage approach.

Stage 1, which they propose to implement straight away, includes an outright ban on mis-selling as part of a set of simplified regulations that all providers must heed.

Stage 2 will be revisited in a consultation document to be published towards the end of this year following a cost/benefit assessment. Stage 2 proposals include:

The Communications Consumer Panel has welcomed Ofcom's proposals to strengthen the regulatory framework that governs the switching of fixed-line services, and we would also like to see Ofcom develop a strategy to move to a single switching process for all communications services as soon as possible.

The Panel would like Ofcom to work with industry to understand better the nature and scale of the mis-selling problem because we recognise that even where people are not slammed they can suffer considerable anxiety and distress, and we believe it important to understand:

We would also like to see financial penalties that have a wider deterrent effect on providers that break the rules thereby helping to raise the level of compliance across the industry.

In a session on the future of regulation, I introduced something of a reality check on behalf of the Consumer Panel, reminding the audience of the Panel's work on consumer concerns relating to mobile coverage here and now, in the UK.

Of course, the mobile industry has been very successful in developing over the years, against a framework of relatively light touch regulation, to the extent that the mobile device is now central to our lives; but with centrality comes responsibility and there remain issues to be resolved. In addition to truly reliable coverage, consumers want good and better information; better complaints handling; a better process for porting numbers - to name just a few. Kevin Russell, the Chief Executive, 3, who was the keynote speaker, made a particular plea that the high level of termination charges should be tackled.

Several speakers echoed one of the Panel's concerns that, with the range of services available from a mobile device, a number of different regulators might be involved - Ofcom, PhonePayPlus, the ASA, the Financial Services Authority, the Gambling Commission and others. Regulators need to agree that one will take ownership of a customer's issue when it cuts across more than one regulator's area of responsibility.

Regulation should protect consumers while delivering the competition and innovation that is ultimately in their best interests. Industry has the opportunity to tackle consumer concerns and avoid the need for overly intrusive regulation going forward.

Perhaps the single most important thing to come out of this discussion was just how important rural, low income and small business issues to each of the three devolved nations. Intuitively we knew this already, but the reports made it much plainer. This is not to say that these issues are less important for parts of England, but they are generally significant for the devolved nations. This suggests that learning from Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland could help to give real substance to the Panel's responsibility for representing the interests of people on low incomes, in rural environments and running small businesses. We will be talking about how to make this a reality, but I hope it will result in our mainstreaming the work of the national Panel members.

We also had a presentation from a member of Martha Lane-Fox's digital inclusion team about today's launch of the race online to 2012 http://raceonline2012.org/. The Panel has been a strong supporter of the idea of a Digital Champion and has a long interest in digital inclusion. I am a member of the Task Force that was set up to advise Martha in her work as digital inclusion champion, but this is in a personal capacity and it is important for the Panel to make their own contribution to this work.

We also discussed a number of issues with Ofcom including: access and inclusion, digital participation, the review of universal service and some work to clear spectrum for newer services such as mobile broadband which will have the consequence that some consumers will need to retune their televisions after digital switchover. 

Anna

91% of small business users and 56% of consumers across the UK regularly have intermittent and poor quality service - this rises to 59% of consumers in Northern Ireland.

The surprise is that so many report satisfaction with their mobile service given the number of problems experienced. It is also surprising that so few do anything about it. About 1 in 5 consumers will take some sort of action, most often contacting their provider. 3 in 5 small business consumers will take some sort of action, including contacting their provider and even changing supplier. Are our expectations too low? If so it is sad because it is in effect allowing providers to continue delivery of a poor service.

In fact quality of service and reception is more important even than cost. What consumers find most frustrating is to discover no reception in their own home and yet be locked into a contract. Not surprisingly small business users want good coverage in their place of work. 99% of private sector businesses in NI are SME's. For them poor mobile coverage is a business critical issue.

Northern Ireland also has the highest number of mobile only users in the UK. Some 13% of households have mobile only. For them quality of service at home is critical.

What can be done? The Consumer Panel is right to call for:

Let's hope this new research data energises providers, regulators and consumers to do more to get the service improved.

In Bournemouth, H2O started pulling in cable in the summer and by early 2011 expects to have passed 85,000 homes. So far, some 200 homes have been passed, of which 84% have agreed to the free installation of an A5-sized box being fitted to the outside of the house. H2O's business model means that it sees itself as a utility and expects to achieved a return on its investment over 15-20 years.

H2O will not itself provide any services. Instead it will run an open access network and, on appropriate commercial terms, any service provider than wishes to do so can use the network to serve customers. Any customer signing up to a service provider - none are operating yet - will visit the customer's premises to install the internal wiring that will be necessary to receive the service.

What services in what bundles at what prices are offered to consumers depends, of course, on the service providers, but the wholesale offering by H2O to those providers is 100 Mbit/s downstream and upstream. In the show house, I saw several televisions showing HD channels plus a Wii being used as an online console plus an X-box operating online plus IPTV on a PC plus several radio station plus an IP phone all operating simultaneously and the network coped smoothly with it all. Of course, no home will want or need this sort of bandwidth for years, but the network has a considerable degree of future-proofing and it will be for the competing service providers to parcel out the bandwidth as consumers find the need and are prepared to pay for it.

Bournemouth will be the first of a number of such Fibrecities. The next in line is Dundee. Construction there has not yet started but is expected to be completed in late 2011. Some 73,000 premises will be passed. Other Fibrecities are expected to be announced by H2O soon. The company's aim is to have half a million homes connected to its local networks by 2012.

With this in mind, the Panel sent a letter today in response to Ofcom's consultation on mobile number portability - the process by which you switch from one provider and deal to another, but keep your original number.  (You can read the full letter here.) The Panel is pleased that Ofcom intends to improve the system of mobile number portability. In doing so, it will be important to consider how this will tie in with plans to develop a more unified switching process for communications services. As far as possible, the Panel thinks that the switching processes for communications services and the process of porting mobile numbers should be consistent and require the limited involvement of consumers.

It's important that simplifying or speeding up the process of porting numbers doesn't cause undesirable side effects - the slamming and scamming potentials for consumers to be switched to a new provider without their consent, or consumers having insufficient information to make an informed decision. 

One thing which the UK might usefully draw lessons from in moving this forward, is the French model. There, consumers receive a code when they request a switch, avoiding the need to communicate with either the gaining or loosing provder. They also get a text which tells them how long their current contract has to run, or whether they are out of contract.  We were happy to see that Ofcom's consultation looks at how other countries' strategies for improving mobile number porting, including the French system. Our current system has been a source of frustration for consumers for some time now, so it's exciting to see the possibilities for improvement which could be developed here.