Lord Carter has recently put out his interim report on Digital Britain. It’s good to see our country’s leaders acknowledging the important role that digital technologies and particularly broadband play in developing a competitive and successful Britain.
The emphasis on the importance of delivering a Digital Britain for the benefit its citizens and closing the digital divide is something we have spent a lot of time trying to conquer ever since we really made broadband available to everyone with Free Broadband. The internet is such a powerful tool – for our future, but also for our present, providing people with a link to important communities, access to jobs, and for ways of saving lots of money at a time where every penny counts.
The Digital Britain report had a few proposals that are worth mulling over:
Universal Service Obligation (USO) – TalkTalk has been taking the lead in closing the digital divide by providing the best value broadband that allows our customers to have a great product at a really low price.
We have also been doing things like offering our Emergency Plan product for our loyal customers who find themselves in a bad spot of luck. We are continuing to invest in things like the TalkTalk ‘Innovation in the Community’ Awards and the Get Online Day to help others benefit from the power of the internet. This is as well as working with autism education charity TreeHouse.
We continue to focus on making broadband a right not a privilege. We hope that the final Digital Britain proposals on the broadband USO will help us to continue to close the digital divide, but not by imposing a tax on ISPs which will hurt existing customers.
Speed and Next Generation Access (NGA) – Speed matters to our customers though we are learning it means different things to different customers. We have been offering a rocking new speed-based boost on our myTalkTalk package which allows you to get speed to your house as fast as it will go.
As you know from Charles’ blog entry, there is a lot going on in the world of speed and it is never as easy as a simple ‘switch on’. We have been working with customers to optimise their connections and sort out the individual challenges that our customers find get in the way of their need for speed. There is a long way to go before the existing network reaches the point that it can’t be optimised any further, with many things that can be done through tweaks inside and outside of homes.
The need for speed is increasing with more computers or connected devices, such as portable consoles in the home. We are working to help our customers to tweak their lines outside and inside their homse to allow a great customer experience when watching videos or playing games online.
Therefore, as we stand, we have no current plans to build our own fibre network. We await with interest to see what the final report in June proposes in terms of delivering NGA, how the government proposes to pay for it, and how we can offer this utility to our customers if it is needed and in their best interest.
Illegal peer-to-peer file sharing – We were delighted that the government has thrown out the ‘three strikes’ proposal – it was unworkable, unreasonable and unfair in asking us disconnect customers on the basis of unreliable allegations by music and film companies and to spy on our customers. We are delighted that the report continues to push for the creative industries to develop legitimate services to meet consumer demand. We will continue to work within the law to tackle the issue of illegal file sharing of music, games, or video content.
We will continue to stay close to the Digital Britain team and will continue to be part of the debate in lead up to the final report published in June. We welcome your thoughts and views on any of the issues raised in the Digital Britain Report, or anything else.
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Anonymous
TalkTalk Blog Team