Yesterday the government released their long-awaited report into the future of media and communications in the UK, and I have to say it was pretty depressing reading. The main proposals are:
A 50p per month tax on phone lines to pay for better rural broadband access, with the aim of 2Mbps broadband for all. When BT was privatised they did nothing to expand the network, even when the profits were rolling in at an embarassing level. Now that times are tough, the public is expected to pay (once again) to rectify the failures of private companies.
The idea that 2Mbps is an aspirational service is pathetic, we should be looking at a fast fibre network as an investment in the same way the Victorians regarded the sewers or the railways. A sensible investment now would reap benefits for decades to come, whereas a 2M service will be outdated before it's finished.
Digital Radio switchover by 2015. National and many local FM services would be switched off, meaning that millions of FM radios would be redundant. Now, DAB has been a failure, with pathetic sound quality and poor sales of receivers. Indeed, it's already old technology, with DAB+ already the standard in many counties. It was relatively easy to switch to digital TV, with cheap and plentiful set-top boxes, but how to I adapt the dozen or so radios in my house and cars?
Filesharing to be cut by 70%. Impossible to measure, as nobody knows the true extent of activity at the moment. It will fall to ISPs to police this, raising questions as to how they know whether the packet I'm downloading is a completely legal open-source application or a pirate copy of an album. Deep packet inspection is illegal under RIPA, so unless there's a change in that law the ISPs will be reduced to guesswork. Add to this that the only remedy at the moment is to refer "illegal" fire sharers to the rights holder who has the option of suing through the civil courts - an expensive process with no guarantee of success. Even if a record company could prove beyond doubt that my IP address downloaded their album, they'd have to prove it was me and not someone else with access to my connection. This is such a short-sighted policy which does nothing to address why people download.
The licence fee to be used to help fund ITV local news. Why? ITV are a dinosaur who are destined to go the same way as Woolworths because of their chronic failure to adapt to the modern era. They plead poverty in the same week they announce a £1.2M p.a. deal for Cheryl Cole, on a programme which spectaularly failed to monetise the populatity of Susan Boyle. They've shelved long-tail dramas which might actually make them money to concentrate on short term reality shows to which they don't own the rights; cut back on local news while wasting money on Friends Reunited, and now public money is going to bail them out. What happens if they start making a profit again? Would that money go towards reducing the licence fee? Don't be absurd.
In short, this was a brilliant opportunity to ensure that our broadcast and communications industry would be in rude health for decades to come, but instead its tinkering at the margins and dithering about all the important stuff. Utterly pathetic.
