Convergence Conversation

Any call to lessen the digital divide must be welcomed,  and thus the statement by the Oftcom Consumer Panel  (Sept 3rd) encouraging different business models to support the roll out of fibre (next generation access) by community groups needs to be applauded.  The BSG report this morning detailing the costs of fibre access is also insightful.   But why the emphasis on 100 Mbps best effort access,  when healthcare applications including a national multi-media communication service could be run on a 500kbps bi-directional assured service?

If we are serious about reducing the Digital Divide then we need to examine, 1) the definition of a standard broadband connection and 2) look at the notion of replacing  the Univesral Service Obligations for the telephone service,  the costs of which are borne by BT only,  and replace it with a cross industry agreed means of funding a Universal Obligation for Broadband access (fixed or mobile).

I have supplied a definition for a Broadband connection here http://www.bbbritain.co.uk.  It is not that different from today but proper labelling,  and  appropriate performance parameters need to be written down.

Declaring a USO for Broadband is easy,  designing something that might actually work is another matter!  There are at least four parts to this,  (funding, entitlement, administration,  and something for now I call fundemental need.  The first one is easy,  and the latter three much more difficult to get right. 

I will deal with the first three very superficially,  the latter is the one that needs attention and here I will give three examples worth exploring.  Funding could be a 10-50p monthly univseral fund tax on broadband users (fixed and mobile) similar to the long distance tax in the US.  Entitlement could be those criteria used for BT's affordability packages and administration is self administration by each operator to support poor folk corresponding to their market share. 

The fundamental need is the trickiest as you need a 'killer app' that everyone immediately appreciates.  It is not access to iPlayer or online Bingo, unless the BBC decides broadband is its primary communications medium,  in which case access comes with my licence fee!  The USO for the telephone service was and is justified to meet the fundamental need of emergency service access and other lifeline services, a service of last resort.  BT are also obligated to pay for a text relay network and pay the RNID to employ operators to do the translation between a deaf person texting and the person they wish to speak with.  I believe the latter costs about £10m a year.  It is worth speculating that if the beneficiaries of existing USO monies were given the option now,  of that money being spent to reduce their mobile spend,  or in the case of deaf kids - free SMS,  then the chances are the money would be spent differently.  So perhaps the first thing in declaring a USO goal,  is the absolute need to be able to change it and hence the call for self administration of funds to support universal connectivity.

The second thing to note is that todays Broadband services are 'best effort' and under BT 21C the plan is that pay you extra for quality and you pay even more for quality the more geographically remote you are!  Paying for enhanced quality does not have to be the case,  but it is at present.  I believe this is also the case for mobile broadband services.  This can be fixed if the will is there to do it!  The need for lifeline and heathcare apps cannot be met even on  fibre access unless you design your network to assure those particular 'bits'. . I would argue that Broadband services are so important that they need to labelled in the way food is with the ingredients clearly transparent so you know what your connectivity is capable of during busy periods.  An example is available here http://bbbritain.co.uk/kitemark.aspx

The first example are school going children of poor families who need connectivity to complete homework and progress their studies.  Do they need their own line or mobile dongle or  can they sit on their neigbours wifi?  Do they have access to a laptop?  Does the school help in the supply chain for the laptop?  It would suggest the supplier of the lap top determines whether connectivity is best served via mobile or fixed or shared wifi. In this case ' best effort' broadband is good enough.

The next example is the deaf community,  not because there are special needs,  but because their language is visual, and if you can meet the communication needs of the deaf user,  your in good shape to meet the needs of everyone else.  While current broadband services have the speed to allow two-way video,  there best effort nature means the user experience is poor,  hence for Deaf people the god send that is SMS and the disappointment that is Broadband.  Buffering of data and consequent interrupted communication do not have to be a service feature for critical applications,  and they do not need to be seen as a value added service.  Again the device to be connected,  mobile or laptop or something in between determines connectivity,  runing a communications service which supports two-way video,  live text(IM)  SMS and email,  is a realtime multi-media communications service proper.  That will not run on the 21CN PSTN replacement service,  and it will not work on a current best efforts broadband network (current or next generation) but it could do.  What we should not do is assume it is a premium value added service.  Perhaps it should be portrayed as a 21st century communications service running on a minimum specified broadband connection,  fixed or mobile.

The third example are the elderly and poor in health.  Intuitively,  broadband has a role but of itself does nothing at all.  The agents who deliver and define 'Care' services need to be encouraged.  The worked conducted by United Response to support their clients in living more independent lives improves the support they give and reduces costs,  and it is entirely reliant on carefully managed broadband connections.  The cost of residential care versus enabling people to continue to live in their homes,  supported online, would have a very quick payback,  so such organisations as United Response could provide a good template to re-define how care services could be provided and re-defined in a Broadband world.

Fibre is great but it is not 'the' critical  component in defining what Broadband Britain could be?  That inspiration is coming from indiviual users and those users are using high speed connectivity to perform what is real time multi-media communications,  an essential bit of whatever Broadband Britain becomes.  Although, more speed helps,  it is not the critical factor,  it success depends on standard Broadband connectivity to be sufficiently robust to support mission critical applications without calling them premium value added services services. 

The fibre drum needs to continue to be beaten,  but there is as much  value to be got by demanding a move from 'best effort' broadband to one where critical applications can be assured on existing connectivity.