The BBC – The Solution to Universal Connectivity?
Published on 24 Mar 2009 at 1:19 pm.
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Filed under Misc, Broadcasting, Digital Britain, Broadband.
Blog author: Tony Ballard
The interim Digital Britain report proposes a digital “Universal Service Commitment” (USC) in broadband by 2012. This is not quite the same kind of thing as the universal service obligation (USO), which requires BT (and Kingston) to provide basic voice and data to all at affordable prices and which is regulated pursuant to the Universal Service Directive. But the report says it is building on the underlying principle of universality and is looking to update it to reflect changed market and customer expectations in terms of technology. It proposes a USC of say 2Mb/s funded by service providers.
The USO has had a chequered history. It is said that it was originally used by AT&T in the US to preserve its long distance network monopoly. In the UK, it led to the access deficit contribution, one of the many obstacles for competing operators to surmount in the early days of telecoms liberalisation. More recently it has been used to seek to justify Government concessions to BT in business rates. And it is now regulated on a Europe-wide basis under the Universal Service Directive - which is perhaps why the report is proposing a USC rather than a USO to avoid it being challenged as an infringement of the Directive. A rose by any other name … ?
By whatever name it is known, it looks like a USO, albeit adapted to a more complex market. It would not be easy to design, since the USO/USC would fall on a number of both fixed and mobile operators and, it seems, would be funded by all of them. If it had been easy, the report would no doubt have suggested something. Instead, it is “inviting views”. As well it might, since those concerned have probably thrown up their hands at the complexity of the funding arrangements, particularly if it involved an access deficit contribution payable to each of the operators on whom the obligation or commitment falls. Nor is it easy to design something for converging markets where availability and take-up are not necessarily linked. Something much more flexible and dynamic is needed.
The chapter in the report in which the new USC is proposed falls into two parts - networks and content. In the first part, the action items are to develop plans for the networks to deliver the commitment and for the networks and network service providers to fund it. In the second part, the actions are aimed at driving take-up through “great content and services”, and the BBC is being invited to provide marketing, cross-promotion and content as well as open platforms. The split reflects the way in which networks and content are subject to separate regulatory regimes and fails to look for a solution outside the conventional box.
As the Government and now (see its 18 March consultation on access and inclusion) Ofcom agonise over connectivity, availability and take-up, one vital part of the debate has been overlooked. The principle of universality is not unknown outside the telecoms sector. It is indeed one of the guiding principles of public service broadcasting. As telecoms and broadcasting converge, why has this not been brought into the debate?
The BBC Trust is consulting on a new software platform, Project Canvas, that will link the domestic television directly to an access network, typically the domestic telephone line, so that programmes available on the internet will be as easily accessible as those in the television schedules. No PC will be needed. Freed from the constraints of a linear schedule, new forms of non-linear broadcasting are likely to blossom, driving take-up among the 40% of UK households who do not yet even have basic broadband access and also driving demand for faster access in the 15% of households which cannot yet get service at 2Mb/s. Take-up will be driven both by demand and by the BBC’s existing commitments to universal availability and accessibility through new media as relevant technologies develop.
Anyone who doubts this need only look at the BBC’s recently renewed Charter, which commits it to helping to deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services. This is no ancillary matter but one of its fundamental public purposes, embedded in Articles 3 and 4 of the new Charter. And it is reflected in its current Statement of Programme Policy which says that the BBC will ensure not only that all its services remain universally available but also that they will be accessible through new media as relevant technologies develop.