ISPA Awards Celebrate Industry Achievements -
ISPA held its 13th annual Awards this month, which brought together the top companies at the Lancaster London. 15 trophies were awarded representing the breadth of the Internet Services industry.
Be Broadband, for a second year running, collected the highly-prized Best Consumer Broadband award and Fluidata won Best Business Broadband. New categories this year included Managed Service and Over-the-Top TV Award, won by Memset and IP Vision.
The opening address was delivered by lawyer Mark Stephens, an internet legal expert who most recently and prominently represented Julian Assange. Mr Stephens spoke about the importance of the Internet in helping to maintain freedom of speech.
The much anticipated Internet Villain Award was presented to Andrew Crossley, the lawyer behind ACS Law, for his firm’s speculative invoicing and the Hero Award was given to Prof Ian Hargreaves for his report into intellectual property.
Other winners included KC, Entanet, Three, Rutland Telecom and Eclipse Internet. For details of the winners, photos and video of the night go to www.ispaawards.org.uk
Sponsors of the ISPA Awards 2011 were Magrathea, Plusnet, BE Wholesale, UKFast, Geo, Virtual Internet and NewNet. For information about sponsoring next year please contact awards@ispa.org.uk.
BT Forced to Block Newzbin 2 Website
A High Court ruled yesterday that BT must block access to the Newzbin 2 website which provides links to copyrighted material. BT and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), which brought the case, will be back in Court in October to decide how the blocking will work.
Nicholas Lansman, ISPA Secretary General, said, "ISPA has long maintained that this is an issue that rights holders should seek to address in court, rather than through voluntary means, and yesterday’s ruling should go some way to offering clarity on what is a complex issue.
However, concerns about over-blocking, ease of circumvention and increased encryption are widely-recognised which means that blocking is not a silver bullet to stop online copyright infringement. Rather, as the Government-commissioned Hargreaves Review recently found, there should be more focus by the creative industries on offering innovative, fully-licensed content services to give consumers what they are clearly demanding."
Ofcom research Reveals Broadband Speeds Increase
Ofcom published research this week revealing that average UK broadband speeds have increased by 10 per cent in the past six months. The research looked at the seven largest ISPs in the market, representing over 75 per cent of residential broadband subscribers in the UK.
The study also revealed that the difference between advertised ‘up to’ speeds and actual speeds is significantly lower with superfast services, but is increasing over copper adsl lines.
Nicholas Lansman, ISPA Secretary General, said, "ISPA is pleased that Ofcom’s research reveals that the average UK broadband speed has increased by 10 per cent in the past six months. We recognise that speed is an important factor to users and this is why ISPA members continue to improve and invest in their infrastructure and services to give customers the best possible experience.
As speeds increase then the gap between actual speeds and advertised speeds may also increase, as the speed of copper ADSL is prone to outside factors, such as the distance a customer lives from the telephone exchange or the condition of a customer’s phone line."
ISPA supports the Ofcom Code of Practice on broadband speeds, and encourages its consumer-facing members to sign up to the Code.
The full research can be found here.
ISPA Council Gains New Chair
Mark Gracey, Regulatory Manager for THUS Ltd, has been named the new Chair of ISPA Council following a vote at the AGM.
Mark has worked in the Internet industry since 1995 and represents THUS on the IWF Funding Council and is a member of Nominet's .uk Policy Stakeholder Committee. As Chair of ISPA Council Mark will represent the association to the outside world and lead on the development of the ISPA's policies.
Mark replaces Jessica Hendrie-Liaño, EMEA Legal Counsel at Bloomberg LP, who had been Chair of ISPA for 10 years.
New Chair of ISPA Council Mark Gracey said, "I look forward to working with the ISPA Council and our 200 plus members on issues facing the industry including the upcoming Communications Bill and on-going work around online copyright infringement.
I would also like to thank my predecessor Jessica for all her hard-work over the years and wish her all the best for the future.”
The full list of ISPA Council members can be found here.
Cerberus Networks Ltd Joins ISPA
Internet Services and Managed IT Systems provider Cerberus Networks www.cerberusnetworks.co.uk joined ISPA in July. Its services include Connectivity, Cloud Services, Systems Integration and Maintenance.
A full list of ISPA members can be found here and you can phone or email ISPA for information about membership benefits at admin@ispa.org.uk or 020 7340 8741.
The Lovie Awards
Today is the last day to enter the Lovie Awards which is a pan European Award to honour the entire breadth of content created for the Internet.
For more information and to enter go here.
ISPA in the News
ISPA was also quoted in the news on issues including blocking, broadband speeds, cyber security and copyright infringement.
You can get regular updates from ISPA by following us on Twitter -twitter.com/ISPAUK.