July Newsletter

The ISPA Awards ceremony took place this month, with 14 celebrated winners across 16 categories. The Internet Hero was awarded to the Guardian for all their work with the PRISM revelations, with GCHQ/NSA picking up the Internet Villain award. These awards were the 16^th ISPAs, and the biggest winners were Hyperoptic and Catalsyt2 who both came away with two awards. It was a great night with 300 guests in attendance from across the whole spectrum of the internet industry. Comedian Ben Norris compered the night, with BDUK Chief Executive Chris Townsend OBE giving the keynote speech. The list of all the winners is here and a photo gallery from the night is here. The evening would not have been possible without our sponsors LinITX, Magrathea, NetLynk Direct, Tagadab and Wick Hill. We’d also like to thank thinkbroadband for all their help with the testing, the judging panel and ISPA Council for choosing the Hero and Villain. We look forward to launching an even bigger and better 2015 ISPAs at the end of the year.

The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act was passed this month in Parliament and ISPA has been analysing what this means to members. Concerns have been voiced over the speed of the Bill’s passing through Parliament and we intend to run a meeting for members on the practical implementations of the new Regulations and the wider reform of RIPA.

The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee published their report into online safety this month. ISPA gave oral and written evidence to the inquiry and we are pleased with how the Government and Ofcom responded, recognising the importance of free speech and expression when regulating online content. The ISPA press release is here and our written evidence to the inquiry can be read here.

ISPA is happy to announce that Julian Ashworth, Global Director of Industry Policy for BT, and Richard Sharpe, Chair of Amatis Networks, were appointed to ISPA Council. Julian continues BT’s long running involvement in governing the organisation and we are delighted to welcome back Richard, who was involved in ISPA's early days almost 20 years ago. The full ISPA Council can be seen here.

ISPA would like to welcome The Co-Operative Group, Superfast Schools and Synergy Telecoms to the association.

DRIPA, online safety, and the ISPA Awards kept the ISPA Press Office busy this month, with articles in the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Inquirer (and here), The Register, V3, TechWeek, Cable.co.uk, Telecom Paper, Recombu, thinkbroadband and ISP Review. Full coverage can be seen here.

ISPA members get free and discounted places at a variety of external conferences and events. Please click here to see the calendar of events.