Mark Pack » digital britain

The future of digital Britain with Jeremy Hunt

Mark Pack — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:55:03 +0000

Cross-posted from the Mandate blog:

What does and should the digital future hold for Britain? Those were the issues addressed by Conservative Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt and others, including Mandate’s Sacha Deshmukh, at an event last week hosted by Polis and sponsored by Mandate.

See the views of Jeremy Hunt and others in this video report via YouTube:

Has the Government just laid down a new performance benchmark for online industries?

Mark Pack — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:44:46 +0000

The Digital Britain report’s plans to ensure that everyone has access to 2mpbs broadband by 2012 has mostly attracted attention for the low speed being aimed for and the ways in which it will be funded.

However, two other aspects are notable. First, 2012 is not very far away. Indeed, as targets arising from long-term reports go, it’s pretty darn close. Second, the underlying rationale – stop the internet exacerbating social exclusion – is one that means it may well mutate into a standard that internet services are expected to meet.

Take the example of councils webcasting their meetings. At the moment, there is no common performance standard such webcasts are expected to meet. But once 2mpbs has become the established minimum, it will become the obvious standard by which to judge future proposals:

Does your proposed solution help reduce social exclusion by working fully over the minimum internet speed available to all? Yes / No

Which supplier is going to want to risk having to answer “no”? Similarly, it can become a positive part of the pitch from suppliers: our service works well over the minimum speed (unlike nasty rivals who exclude people by requiring a faster internet connection blah blah blah).

By design or not, it looks to me like the Government has landed industry with a benchmark against which to be judged.

David Lammy demonstrates how not to carry out a public consultation

Mark Pack — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:50:56 +0000

The Open Rights Group blog has the story, pointing out how the deadline for comments on the Digital Britain Report was followed so swiftly by a press release that it’s hard to believe that the views submitted by people to the consultation were really considered:

Last Thursday the Open Rights Group along with many others made a submission in response to the Digital Britain Report. In that submission, we said:

This action has the potential for much harm. We call on the ?nal Digital Britain report to
reject the idea of a ?rights agency?.

Less than 12 hours later, we found David Lammy and Stephen Carter launching a discussion paper into the shape of the ‘Digital Rights Agency’.

It is hard to believe that either minister had processed the responses on exactly this question in the space of twelve hours.

You can read the full story here.