Tickets Selling Fast for the ISPA Awards

Tickets for the ISPA Awards on July 3rd are now available from the ISPA website here. The event will take place at the Park Lane Sheraton Hotel in London.  The black tie event features keynote speakers, champagne reception, 3 course meal, compere, live band and awards ceremony.

Peter Cochrane, former CTO at BT, and Tom Scott, social media expert, will give keynote speeches before the dinner and award-winning comic John Maloney will perform and host the awards ceremony. Live music will follow from the ‘Man From Funkle’.

Information about tickets is on the website www.ispaawards.org.uk or email awards@ispa.org.uk for more information.

Leading ISP Finalists Announced for 2012 ISPA Awards

The finalists for the 14th annual awards were announced this month with more than 40 companies nominated across 12 categories. The results will be announced on 3rd July at the Park Lane Sheraton Hotel dinner and awards’ ceremony. Last year’s winners of the Best Consumer and Best Business Fixed Broadband ISP, BE Broadband and Fluidata, will both be defending their titles in their respective categories. Plusnet leads the way with five nominations. A full list of finalists is available here.

New categories for this year included the Customer Choice Award, voted for by customers of ISPs, with thousands of votes cast. Best New ISP also made its category debut to recognise the continued innovation of the internet industry. Entrants in the broadband and hosting categories underwent two months of rigorous testing by ISPA’s technical testing partners, thinkbroadband, while Malden Electronics carried out the testing for the Internet Telephony category. It is now down to the independent panel of ISPA Awards judges to decide on the winners.

“Congratulations to all the finalists of the 14th annual awards and the best of luck for the night. Nomination is the culmination of either rigorous technical testing, written entry forms analysed by experts judges or votes from customers”, said ISPA Secretary General, Nicholas Lansman. “This year’s new categories once again demonstrate the innovation of our industry and with thousands of votes cast by members of public adds a new dimension to the event”, he added.

Magrathea, O2 Wholesale, CISAS, Geo Networks and Return Path are sponsoring categories at the Awards this year. For more information about sponsors click here - www.ispa.org.uk/ispa-awards/sponsors/ or contact awards@ispa.org.uk.

Nine New Members Join ISPA in Two Months

ISPA’s membership has grown by nine new members in two months. The new members are Avonline, BAE Systems Detica, Briskona, Central Technology, Child Safe Solutions CIC, Quickline Communications, Memset, Smoothwall and Speednet Scotland. ISPA’s membership has now grown to more than 200 members.

ISPA represents its members in work with Government, parliament and regulators and strives to ensure that any regulatory changes by Government are made for the good of ISPA members. ISPA also provides expert advice when called upon and in the recent past has given evidence to parliamentary committees on defamation, privacy and online child safety.

ISPA Secretary General, Nicholas Lansman, “Potentially onerous new regulations placed upon service providers, the upcoming Communications Bill Green Paper, free CISAS membership, ISPA events and the chance to shape policy, are just some of the reasons members have recently joined ISPA. ISPA members agree to abide by the ISPA Code of Practice and the ISPA logo is recognised as a kite mark of responsible Internet business.”

For comments from the new members and existing members on reasons for joining ISPA click here. For more information on joining ISPA please contact www.ispa.org.uk, admin@ispa.org.uk  or 020 3397 3308.

O2 Wholesale Wishes All Finalists the Best of Luck

We are delighted to be sponsoring the Best Business Fixed Broadband Award once again this year.  These Awards offer the recognition the industry deserves in its drive for innovation and best practice and we are proud to be a part of these celebrations.

Reaching over 70 per cent of mainland businesses and with one of the largest ADSL 2+ and Annex-M enabled networks in the UK, we are in a very strong position to support the industry’s commitment to quality and reliability. With abundant capacity, industry-leading upload speeds, and a commitment to upgrade the network the moment it reaches 70 per cent usage at peak times, our infrastructure is built for the next-generation of internet services and is unconstrained by legacy congestion.

O2 is the only provider in the UK to own both fixed and mobile networks, providing partners with truly joined up wholesale communications.

Well done to all the Finalists and we wish everyone the best of luck on the night!

Government Plan for Communications Data Outlined in the Queen’s Speech

The Queen’s Speech confirmed the Government’s intention to introduce new legislation to maintain/extend the communications data capabilities of UK law enforcement authorities. A bill has not yet been published but an initial outline suggests that an increase in relevant powers may be complemented by an increase in oversight. A Joint Committee will be formed to consider the bill and report back on 30 November and is likely to ask for written and oral evidence to inform its final report.  The Home Office would like to see the bill include a requirement for communications providers to store data for 12 months with reimbursement of the cost for the retention of data.

Defamation Bill Provides Defence to Website Operators

Following lobbying by ISPA and others, the Defamation Bill has been introduced into Parliament. As expected, the Bill introduces a single publication rule and a new general defence which would provide website operators with a defence against defamatory statements that have been posted by a third party on their website.

Website operators will not be able to make use of the general defence if the claimant can demonstrate that it was not possible to identify the person who posted the statement; gave the operator a notice of complaint in relation to the statement; and the operator failed to respond to the notice of complaint in accordance to the regulations.

The details of how quickly an operator needs to respond will be set through secondary legislation. Secondary legislation will also be used to further specify the minimum standards with which notices of complaint have to comply. At present the Bill only sets out that a notice of complaint should specify the complainant’s name; set the statement concerned and explain why it is defamatory of the complainant; and specify where on the website the statement was posted.

Interested in Joining ISPA? Come to the Free ISPA Seminar in Manchester

ISPA is hosting a Seminar in Manchester on June 21st which will provide an update on the latest regulatory and policy developments for the industry. The presentations and Q&A session will be followed by the opportunity to network and discuss informally, and meet fellow members of ISPA at the drinks reception. Issues that will be discussed include the Digital Economy Act, Communications Data and calls for adult content to be blocked by default. It will also look at some of the benefits of ISPA membership.

If you would like to attend, please rsvp to admin@ispa.org.uk.Please feel free to circulate the invitation to your colleagues.

ISPA News Coverage

ISPA was quoted in the news on issues including; copyright, default filtering, alternative dispute resolution, defamation, communications data, new members, the FutureEverything conference and the ISPA Awards. Full coverage here.

You can get regular updates from ISPA by following us on Twitter - twitter.com/ISPAUK.