Political Monitor 15/05/2020

15 May 2020

COVID-19

ISPA launches key worker campaign

ISPA has launched its #keepingBritainConnected campaign in which key workers from across the telecoms industry and across ISPA’s membership are showcased for the important contribution they are making throughout the pandemic. The campaign launched on Monday with support from DCMS and BSG and will continue to be promoted on twitter.

Committee on Human Rights drafts Bill on Contact Tracing App

Following their report last week, the Joint Committee on Human Rights has drafted a Bill seeking to protect privacy as the Government rolls our the Contact Tracing App, and put the assurances promised by Matt Hancock to the Committee into law. The Bill’s provisions include:

 

Broadband

Wayleaves Bill amendments tabled in the Lords

The Telecoms Infrastructure (Leasehold Property Bill) continues to make its way through the House of Lords with a number of amendments tabled ahead of the Committee Stage next week. These include provisions to remove the requirement for the lessee to be in occupation at the time that they request for an electronic communications service to be provided, as well as allowing operators to gain access to a property in the event that “the provision of new infrastructure on that site would be in the public interest”. Further amendments allow operators to trigger the process to gain access without relying on tenant requests and allow the provisions to be used for “third party” land that is on the way to a target premise. If they do pass, it is not expected that these amendments would hold when the Bill returns to the Commons.

Ofcom

Ofcom UK Home Broadband Performance report

Ofcom have published a report into the state of the UK broadband market which highlighted the “reliable, good-quality broadband connectivity” as an essential part of life across the country. The report takes account of measurements taken during the Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020 to assess the impact of increased homeworking and schooling. This showed a “significant increase in demand” for broadband services, which operators were able to manage.

Ofcom note that broadband performance “largely withstood the increase in demand” over the crisis, with average download and upload speeds falling by only 2% and 1% respectively, while delay (latency) was 2% higher (worse).

Ofcom have also published the results of their testing of router Wi-Fi performance which showed many customers could increase their performance by just upgrading their router.

Ofcom Spring 2020 Connected Nations Update

The latest update to Ofcom’s Connected Nations data has shown an 500,000 increase in the number of homes with access to full fibre broadband in the four months to January 2020. This now equates to 3.5m across the UK or 12% of homes as of the start of the year. Ultrafast speeds of at least 300mbps are now available across 16.1m homes, roughly 55%, and superfast now up to 95%.

Competition Director, Jonathan Oxley to step down

Ofcom have announced that Group Director for Competition and member of the Ofcom Board, Jonathan Oxley will step down in June 2020. This follows a stint as interim CEO following the departure of Sharon White, and prior to Dame Melanie Dawes’ appointment. David Clarkson, currently acting Competition Group Director, will continue acting in this role.

Online Harms

Ministers give evidence on online harms during the pandemic

The Home Affairs committee heard evidence from Digital and Culture Minister Caroline Dinenage MP and Countering Extremism Minister Baroness Williams of Trafford.

On the Online Harms White Paper Dinenage was asked if the pandemic had impacted the timescale and scope of proposed regulations to which she said government wanted to build consumer trust in online platforms and protect the £149bn tech companies added to the UK economy. She did say there would however, be “no rowing back on the Online Harms White Paper”. When asked why DCMS had not taken a final decision on who the regulator would be, merely stating a preference for Ofcom Dinenage admitted Ofcom might not have the technical expertise to assume the role at present. She added that a final decision would be made before the legislation was published and the regular would begin as publicly funded before moving to funded by the industry.

On the prevalence of disinformation around 5G, Dinenage highlighted that Some major platforms had updated their services and standards because of COVID-19, such as WhatsApp restricting the ability of users to forward posts and YouTube allowing the Government to run banners on its messaging. She noted how telecommunications infrastructure was vital to the UK’s economic recovery and added that she did not believe either the disinformation or attacks had affected the rollout of 5G

Lords question ministers on online harms

Caroline Dinenage MP was similarly up in front of the Lords Democracy and Digital Technology Committee in which she was asked again about the timing of the Online Harms Bill. She noted that whilst the hope had been to publish the response to the White Paper over the summer, this was now expected by the end of the year. She urged digital companies to continue to think about changes they could make to support this agenda in the interim. Committee Chair and Labour peer Lord Puttnam suggested putting the Bill through pre-legislative scrutiny.

Pressed by Lord Mitchell, Dinenage explained that Ofcom or another regulator would “have teeth” to take punitive action against social media firms who did not respect their duty of care.