Government

Vaizey hails urban vouchers as 'breaking new ground', as scheme rolls out in 22 cities

SCCThe Vouchers component of the Government’s Super Connected Cities programme (also known as the Urban Broadband Fund) launched across 22 cities as part of Small Business Saturday on Saturday 7 December. The voucher scheme represents up to £100 million of the £150 million being overseen by BDUK and managed by cities to provide a step change in connectivity for businesses in urban areas.

Today in a written statement to parliament, Communications Minister Ed Vaizey MP said that “the market tests in 5 cities over the summer have showed that suppliers and SMEs want to participate in the Scheme, with over 60 suppliers registered for the market tests and an increasing number now registering for the full scheme.??? (more…)

New money for innovative technologies as 2017 superfast broadband landscape becomes clearer

The Government has treated the broadband community to a new announcement and restatements of intent as part of this week’s Autumn Statement and National Infrastructure Plan.

The main new funding announcement from yesterday’s National Infrastructure Plan was the opening of a £10 million competitive fund in 2014 to market test innovative solutions, delivering superfast broadband services to the most difficult to reach areas of the UK. The BSG welcomes this fund; an intelligent blend of different technologies (including fixed, mobile and other solutions) will be crucial in reaching the government’s ambition for 99% access to superfast broadband by 2018. (more…)

UK Broadband Impact Study published

The DCMS-commissioned UK Broadband Impact Study by SQW was released yesterday morning, and was welcomed by Culture Secretary Maria Miller MP who said “What this report shows us is that as well as superfast broadband being good for economic growth it will make even more of a positive impact on the way we live, helping us work more productively and get online faster.”

The study estimates that the availability and take-up of faster broadband speeds will add about £17 billion to UK GVA by 2024. This level of uplift contributes an average of 0.07 % to real annual GVA growth over this period.

The study estimates the following economic results relating to interventions made by the Government’s broadband programme: (more…)

Public Accounts Committee publishes report following enquiry into rural broadband

This morning the Public Accounts Committee published their final report following their examination of the Government’s rural broadband programme.

The report focuses its attention on areas where the committee believed BT and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport could have acted in a way which brought better value for money for the tax payers.

The recommendations from the report are as follows: (more…)

DCMS and Arqiva reveal locations of Mobile Infrastructure Projects

Government has this week revealed the first locations that will be covered by the £150m Mobile Infrastructure Project. In an announcement on the DCMS site, mobile phone coverage will be increased in areas where no coverage is currently available. Cornwall, Northumberland, Strabane, Aberdeenshire and Powys are among the areas that stand to benefit most from the project, with the first sites due to “go live??? by the end of this year. (more…)

DCMS publish policy paper – Connectivity, Content and Consumers: Britain's digital platform for growth

Today the Department for Culture, Media and Sport publish the policy paper Connectivity, Content and Consumers: Britain’s digital platform for growth.

We are pleased to share that the Broadband Stakeholder Group has been named as the key conduit to assess what the commercial requirements will be as part of the development of an overall UK digital communications infrastructure strategy for 2015 to 2025. We look forward to working with government, industry and others on this. (more…)

One Digital Nation? Shadow Minister Helen Goodman MP speaks to BSG on policy post 2015

 

Shadow Minister Helen Goodman MP addressed the Broadband Stakeholder Group on Tuesday 16 July 2013 on communications and broadband policy post-2015. Following Labour’s announcement that they would invest £75 million in a new programme that would focus on getting more people online and improving digital skills provision if they won the next election, Helen Goodman MP spoke on her vision for digital inclusion, infrastructure, skills, the role of mobile, and more.

A Storify of the #OneDigitalNation twitter conversation is available here.

National Audit Office release report on the rural broadband programme

This morning, the National Audit Office released their anticipated report on the rural broadband programme. It is available here.

The report set out the following recommendations:

  • DCMS should review all the reasons for the delay in roll-out to date and guard against further slippage
  • DCMS should seek greater assurance that BT’s bid prices are reasonable and do not contain excessive contingency
  • DCMS should implement the procedures it is developing to thoroughly monitor in-life contract costs, placing additional emphasis on ensuring staff expertise
  • DCMS should consider evidence on take-up rates outside of the programme and discuss with BT whether its modelling assumptions are still valid

NAO head Amyas Morse is quoted as saying “the rural broadband project is moving forward late and without the benefit of strong competition to protect public value. For this we will have to rely on the Department’s active use of the controls it has negotiated and strong supervision by Ofcom.???

The Public Accounts Committee, lead by Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, is expected to hold a session on this issue later this month. They have issued a press release here.

Investing in Britain’s Broadband Future – Government provides further detail on a post-2015 vision

Whilst yesterday’s Spending Round had scant mention of broadband, this morning’s Investing in Britain’s Future publication on Infrastructure from the Treasury shed further light on the Government’s vision for broadband post-2015.

In his speech to parliament, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said he wanted UK communities to be better connected.  This was reflected in £250m funds for fixed superfast broadband, targeted to cover 95% of the population by 2017 (building on the Government’s current target of 90% by 2015). This £250m comes as part of the £300m that had been previously been allocated for broadband from the TV licence fee in the period 2015-2017 (with the remaining £50m remaining uncommitted).

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BSG issue response to DCMS and DCLG consultation on mobile connectivity

Today the Broadband Stakeholder Group submitted its response to proposals aimed at boosting the roll-out of mobile and mobile broadband, issued by the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

The BSG supports the main tenants and objectives of the proposals but recommends that the government may wish to go further on:

  • Ensuring infrastructure upgrades in non-protected areas can occur under permitted development, without the need for prior approval, to support an efficient 4G roll-out process
  • Further ease restrictions in protected areas to support improved connectivity in rural and hard to reach areas

The response also offers some additional proposals focused on how to support anticipated new infrastructure in support of mobile connectivity, in addition to the proposals to support upgrade of existing infrastructure.

Read the full response to the consultation here.

Unanswered questions remain on digital scope of Draft Consumer Rights Bill

The Draft Consumer Rights Bill has now been published, following its announcement in the 2013 Queen’s Speech last month. This will be of particular interest to the broadband community in light of its aim to update consumer protection to keep up with technological developments, particularly in regard to digital purchases.

The Bill has been touted by BIS minister Jo Swinson as “enhancing consumer rights and making them easier to understand, which will boost the economy by £4 billion over the next decade???, and will now cover the repair or replacement of faulty digital content such as film and music downloads, online games and e-books. (more…)

DCMS Broadband initiatives feature in Major Projects Authority annual report

Last week saw the publication of the Major Projects Authority annual report, the result of the collaboration between the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury and departments aiming to significantly improving the delivery success rate of major projects across central government through monitoring and the opening up of public data.

Details on the major public broadband initiatives within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport were published as part of this report, and we’ve pulled out some highlights for our readers: (more…)

Queen's Speech 2013 – broadband business as usual

Today’s Queen’s Speech was, as expected, not full of surprises – both in a general sense and in relation to broadband and technology.

In the context of an overall political message to focus govermment activity in support of a strong, growing and competitive economy whilst building a fair society to reward people who work hard, the major legislative planks formed around immigration, pensions, social care and education.

No name-check to broadband in the Queen’s Speech, refecting the business as usual approach the government has taken for some time in respect of the ongoing programmes in support of broadband rollout.  No mention either to the Communications Bill where we are expecting a White Paper before the summer recess.

Three announcements are however of interest to those in the sector: (more…)

New report calls attention to the offline populace

Just over a week ago the National Audit Office published Digital Britain 2: Putting users at the heart of government’s digital services. Its authors looked at the progress being made with the Government’s ‘digital by default’ agenda for public services. Today we see that it has been taken up for further inquiry by the Public Accounts Committee, indicating that this agenda will continue to receive further scrutiny from various quarters and will have to address the significant numbers of people who cannot, or do wish to, go online. (more…)

Lords publish report on Media Convergence and ‘the elephant in the room’

The Lords Select Committee on Communications has published its report on Media Convergence yesterday, after months of evidence sessions with some of the big hitters from the media world (including our very our Chair Richard Hooper). The report is available here with accompanying information here.

The Chair of the Committee, Lord Inglewood, commented on the report that “The elephant in the room has been the impact of technological change – the Internet. Sitting over most of the media we consume is a complicated framework of rules and regulations. These are supposed to make sure the content the UK public engages with meets their expectations. However, the simple days have gone.???

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