ISPA welcomes changes to new broadband advertising rules

There have been a number of important policy developments this month including changes to the way broadband is advertised.  The new rules will mean ISPs will have to advertise speeds available to 50% of customers at peak times and be described as ‘average’ and is in line with ISPA’s submission to a CAP consultation. ISPA’s press comment welcoming the changes can be found here.

The changes follow hot on the heels of Ofcom updating the broadband speeds code of practice. ISPA organised a meeting between members and Ofcom to contribute to the review process and we also met with the DCMS on its newly formulated ‘Broadband Barrier Busting Task Force’ to discuss initiatives to reduce the barriers to infrastructure deployment.

ISPA seeks to work to improve Alternative Dispute Resolution

Ofcom published the conclusions of its review into Alternative Dispute Resolution schemes in the telecoms sector where the two existing schemes, CISAS and Ombudsman Services, were both reapproved.  ISPA supports alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as a free and easy-to-use way for consumers and business to resolve disputes. We provide free ADR as a benefit of membership and work with our members to identify practical issues with the schemes and come up with improvements and solutions.

In our response we identified a number of ways in which the ADR process could be improved and provided a number of case studies. We are pleased that Ofcom has agreed to look further into some of the trends our members have identified, including research into whether appropriate decision are being made, publishing more robust data and a sample case review of potential out of scope cases, and look forward to working further on these issues.

ISPA working groups debate online safety and cyber security

The Content, Safety and Liability working group met this month to discuss ISPA’s response to the Internet Safety Strategy Green Paper, published by DCMS in October, as well as progress of the Digital Economy Act. Implementation of the NIS Directive was high on the agenda on the cyber security working group while ISPA also attended a Labour Party Policy Roundtable on the topic of Data Protection held by new Shadow Digital Economy Minister, Liam Byrne MP.

ISPA Forum - RSVP today

ISPA are pleased to invite you to attend our first event of 2018 an ISPA Policy Forum, taking place in Manchester on Wednesday 31st January 2018 from 2pm until 5pm in the offices of ISPA Legal Forum member, DLA Piper LLP.

This event is free for ISPA members and is a chance to meet with the ISPA team and follow members. The day’s agenda will include updates on:

  • GDPR  from DLA Piper
  • ISPA’s policy agenda
  • Local Full Fibre Network
  • ISPA’s ADR provider Ombudsman Services workshop

The event will conclude with the networking drinks reception.

If you wish to attend please RSVP to admin@ispa.org.uk

We're hiring!

ISPA is looking for a Business Development Lead and are keen to hear from enthusiastic individuals who want to join and help drive the leading internet industry trade association. More information on the role and how to apply is here.

ISPA Conference

Another successful sold out ISPA Conference took place on 8th November at BT Tower. We were pleased to hear from Matthew Gould, Director General for Digital and Media Policy at the Department Digital, Culture, Media & Sport; Clive Selley, CEO, Openreach; Ian Levy, Technical Director, NSCS; and Jo Goodall and Alice Fletcher from NCA. Collaboration was the theme of the day as the industry looks to deliver at an exciting time for our sector.

Our panel sessions covered the broadband rollout, rights and responsibilities online and customer expectations. The day wouldn't be possible without our sponsors BT, Nominet, Darktrace, Netsweeper, Arista and Axians.

Find more details of the day's discussions here.

ISPA in the News

ISPA provided comments to The Guardian, uSwitch, ISPReview, Advanced Television and Total Telecom on the ASA's guidelines on the advertised internet speeds. We also commented on the Ofcom's ADR scheme review findings in ISPReview  and The Register published the interview with Openreach's CEO Clive Selley that he had given during the ISPA Conference.

New ISPA Members

ISPA is delighted to welcome two new members this month BroadbandDeals.co.uk and QubeGB. QubeGB was specifically set up to offer a high quality, value for money services to ISPs for in-home broadband installation and repair work.

BroadbandDeals.co.uk is a privately-held independent website providing the best broadband deals to the UK public, along with how-to guides, help and advice.

ISPA membership offers many benefits, find out more and join at: https://www.ispa.org.uk/join/

A word from ICANN: Universal Acceptance of Internet domain names

The Internet has experienced explosive growth over the last 20 with more than 1K domains now in suffixes that speak interests and affiliations (e.g, .COLLEGE or .PARIS) or are in languages other than English. But while the infrastructure has changed dramatically, the software that supports Internet-enabled applications, devices and systems and software has not – it is still based on rules set up more than two decades ago.

The result, problems for organisations and headaches for users because if the systems do not recognise or appropriately process the new domain names or email addresses that use these extensions – which results in denial of service and a poor user experience for people using these domains.   Universal Acceptance (UA) is a technical compliance process that ensures that all domain names and email addresses can be used by all Internet-enabled applications, devices and systems. By making all systems interoperable, UA provides a gateway to the next billion Internet users and is essential for the continued expansion of the Internet. It enables governments and societies to better serve their communities through the use of an increasing number of new domains, including non-Latin-based, language-specific domain names in Arabic, Chinese and many other scripts.

Resources To address the issue of Universal Acceptance, the UASG developed a number of helpful guides and resources which are available at https://uasg.tech/documents. Of particular note is the Quick Guide to Universal Acceptance (UASG005) and the “Introduction to Universal Acceptance (UASG 007)”, a comprehensive technical document on UA and the key issues that developers and system architects need to know.