I was interested to see in the media yesterday that the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has been expressing concern that patchy availability of sufficient bandwith broadband is damaging the ability of rural businesses to compete with their urban counterparts. A spokesman suggested that it was not too dramatic to state that ‘the life of rural Britain will be snuffed out if by 2020 fibre optic technology is only available to our cities and towns'.
While fibre optic may not be the only answer, the importance of making broadband available throughout the UK has been consistently stressed by the Panel. Our recent research report Not online, not included showed that consumers believe it will soon be essential for everyone to have broadband at home, wherever they live. For businesses, broadband of sufficient speed is simply indispensible.
Last week, we published our response to Ofcom's consultation on access and inclusion. We welcome Ofcom's intention to bring together all the issues that have a bearing on access and inclusion under a single overarching project.
On Broadband availability, we had already welcomed the Government's universal broadband commitment. But, as ever, the key test is delivery and whether people everywhere in the UK really will be able to have access to - and the skills to use - online services at a speed that allows them to do what they want, when they want.
‘Not spots', of course, is not just a broadband issue. Despite claims of virtually universal mobile coverage, there are still plenty of people - including me - who have difficulty getting a signal at home, never mind when they are on the move. On the Panel, we think there is an unacceptable gap between official data and the reality experienced by consumers. We've asked Ofcom to give this issue greater priority and are carrying out our own research to better understand consumers' experience in this area.
We will keep you posted.
Ofcom released their consultation document ‘Mostly Mobile‘ on 8 July. It is a clever title which recognises the changes in the communications world over recent years. Both mobile take up and customer satisfaction are high and citizens now regard mobile services as central to their lives and so Ofcom's assessment needs to be against that ‘centrality' background.
The mobile operators tell us that complaints about network coverage are a relatively small proportion of all complaints. And that may well be the case; but for some people, especially those who live outside urban areas coverage remains an issue for this service which is ‘central' to their lives. We welcome the focus that Ofcom have given to this issue in the consultation document and the recognition that competition is unlikely to materially improve coverage. We hope that the consultation with operators, the devolved administrations and others can result in ways of making improvements for those customers who experience poor or non existent coverage. We commented on this in our press release responding to the issue of the consultation document .
Progress has been made on both ‘999 roaming' i.e being able to make a call on another network if your own is unavailable and on reducing misselling, but we will be monitoring both to ensure that progress continues.
Other areas of consumer concern that we will be discussing with Ofcom are
As ever we would welcome any comments
On Monday I went to Nesta's Reboot Britain Conference. It was a very lively event with some interesting sessions on the role ICT can play in reforming public services. Jonty Olif-Cooper, who runs the Progressive Conservatism project at Demos, talked about the need for greater efficiency and innovation in public services to respond to the pressures of demographic change, climate change and the credit crunch. He suggested that technology can help by: improving the existing mechanisms for public service reform (choice, voice etc); increasing local control over services by devolving power; facilitating collective action; and helping to share knowledge about performance and best practice. He didn't address how this would tackle the class divide in access to high quality services, especially given that the middle classes not only have the education, skills and confidence to be able to utilise these opportunities, but are also much more likely to have access to the technology.
Antonio Gould and Matt Marsh ran an interesting session on the importance of involving users when thinking about the purpose and design of a service, not just in the usability testing phase: an interesting point for those thinking about Digital Britain's proposal to move public services online.
Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive at the RS, gave his view on why the internet has so far failed to transform civic society. He argued that the public debate confuses the two different roles of government: an organisation that delivers services and a body that makes decisions. In the former it is broadly reasonable, at least to a degree, for users to have consumer expectations. In the latter a consumerist approach is highly problematic, as people tend to have conflicting aspirations and make impossible demands: for instance wanting Swedish style public services on American style taxes. He argued that the challenge is to find a way to create a space that is not just a vehicle for more effectively voicing demands, but which gets people think about those demands in the context of both their own and other people's competing priorities.
Martha Lane Fox also spoke at the event. She stressed how important it was that we focus on those people who were being left behind, not just in access to technology but in other areas too. She listed some of the benefits that digital participation could bring, such as increased earning potential, increased confidence etc. She argued that we understand these people well now, and that it is time to take action: we look forward to working with her and the Task Force to determine what form that action will take.
Last week I attended Intellect's Consumer Electronics Conference themed Driving Digital Value. The conference is an annual event where manufacturers, retailers, broadcasters, government and media stakeholders attend to listen about the challenges and opportunities companies see ahead of them.
Whilst much of it was about new products and business plans a couple speakers did talk specifically about the consumer experience in the Digital World and it wasn't based on the experience of digital natives but of the general populace. So what did they say?
Helen Keppel-Compton is the Head of Buying of Consumer Electronics at John Lewis and said that the consumer electronics market is the most challenging product area she has worked in in her twenty year career. And provided the following example: starting in 1984 when consumers purchased Bruce Springsteen's ‘Born in the USA' on vinyl and took us through the cassette and CD purchasing era to the rise of the music download market and ownership of ipods in 2005. During this time Helen pointed out that people continued to purchase jeans without any problems, but technology changed rapidly without people instinctively understand it.
To overcome consumer confusion Helen thinks that electronic products need to do be simplified, and not be electronic Swiss Army knives. If a person is purchasing a digital camera it should be a digital camera and not have a video editing suite incorporated as well. Her ideal piece of equipment would be one remote that had one button, which did everything - perhaps a little wishful?
Dave Tansley, a Partner at Deloitte, talked about how consumers are becoming more demanding and fragmented in their views and that whilst consumers will be price conscious they will also be value driven, i.e. does the product meet their green expectations? And whilst the benefits consumers get from the digital market are: choice, immediacy, convenience and personalisation. The challenges consumers face are choice (too much), immediacy (slooooow downloads), convenience (services are inaccessible for some users) and personalisation (who owns your personal information?).
All of this points to the need for industry to make their products simple to use and for consumers to be empowered so that they can get the full benefits of using them. This reflects much of what the Panel has been saying in the current debate about how to expand digital participation.
On Tuesday I attended the Westminster Media Forum seminar Children, the Commercial World and the Media. The event was chaired by Lord Clement Jones, Liberal Democrat Spokesman for Culture, Media and Sport and Judy Mallaber MP, Chair, PLP Departmental Committee for Education and Skills. Speakers included James Thickett, Ofcom's Director of Market Research and Intelligence who was presenting the latest data from Ofcom's research on young people's use of social networking and other internet sites, and Howard Litton, Managing Director of Nickelodeon UK, who talked about the future of children's television in a multi-platform age.
Much of the discussion was focused on content, but there were also some interesting points for those of us who are interested in digital participation more widely. In particular, the importance of going beyond traditional approaches to media literacy. This is partly because the line between content and advertising is becoming increasingly blurred, which affects the way children learn to understand when and how they are being advertised too. But it is also because people, particularly children and young people, are increasingly using the internet for socialising and communication. This raises real issues about the sorts of skills that people need. The ability to differentiate between and analyse different types of content isn't enough. People also need to be taught social skills that will equip them to manage relationships and social situations online, including the fall-out from things like online bullying and rejection.
This reinforces the importance of the change in emphasis in the Digital Britain from media literacy to digital participation, emphasising the need to focus on the range of different skills that people need to fully participate in a digital society.
Mis-selling in the fixed-line market - where consumers are switched without their consent or an attempt is made to do this - is a long-standing problem and indeed the first submission to Ofcom by the Consumer Panel was on this subject. A series of efforts have been made to reduce the problem and the Panel has welcomed the latest measures proposed in a recent Ofcom consultation document.
However, the nature of the problem has changed as the competitive market has developed. The Panel is particularly concerned now that mis-selling of services and the ability to switch services take on a different dimension when different services - such as fixed line, mobile, broadband and television - are bundled together into a package. Over four in ten households already take bundled packages and a third of these take the triple-play option of fixed, broadband and TV.
Therefore the Chair of the Communications Consumer Panel Anna Bradley has written to the Ofcom Director of Consumer Affairs Claudio Pollack to call for thinking about a single process for switching communications services:
"In parallel with strengthening and enforcing the rules on fixed line mis-selling, we believe that Ofcom should be working towards a single process to enable consumers who buy bundles of services to switch provider quickly and easily. We would like to see Ofcom develop a strategy to move to a single switching process for all communications services as soon as possible.
This should involve a detailed examination of the possible options, including a process that requires a consumer to contact the new provider only, a process that requires a consumer to contact the existing provider initially and a process overseen by an independent third party. The Panel recognises that this is not a straightforward issue and that each option has pros and cons."
You can read the full letter here.