It’s always blue skies at the Beeb
Is it just me, or had the parasites not been getting up themselves more than usual last week? First we had the ‘Safer Children in a Digital World’ report by the TV psychologist Dr Tanya Byron, which recommended the creation of a new quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization (Quango).
Then there was the interim ‘The Power of Information’ review by a couple of NGO activists. No guesses what they will recommend – so much easier to live off the taxpayer than to fund-raise.
Then there’s the BPI’s threat that the government will force ISPs to disconnect illegal file sharers unless they agree to do so ‘voluntarily,’ which has received a robust reply from TalkTalk.
The BBC, the oldest and biggest quango of them all, has also weighed in. Ashley Highfield, Director of BBC Future Media & Technology, bestowed his wisdom upon us from the BBC Internet Blog.
The nominal subject of his exegesis is that some ISPs offering ‘unlimited access’ can charge customers extra after only a few TV programmes (from BBC iPlayer) have been accessed. The solution, says Highfield, is a ‘Broadband Charter.’ His suggestions put Ofcom centre stage.
‘ISPs who have their own network (Virgin) are busily rolling out 50Mb/s broadband,’ says Highfield. ‘The rest have either installed their own equipment at BT switches (LLU), or simply buy capacity wholesale off BT Wholesale (e.g. Tiscali), and are, to a greater or lesser extent, beholden to the (regulated but quite reasonably profit-making motivated) BT Wholesale.’
‘Quite reasonably profit-making’? What does he think generates the taxes that pay his salary?
Regulations - that's what you need
‘There are those who are starting to ask if, as with the regulator led introduction of LLU that was necessary to kick-start broadband in the first place,’ Highfield continued. ‘Is there another sizable intervention required again now?’
‘Regulator-led’? The broadband revolution was HELD BACK by regulations whose effect was to maintain the BT monopoly as long as possible.
Ofcom is ‘actively looking at everything from Wifi and Wi-Max to sewers, and exploring what encouragement and relaxation of regulation would be required to accelerate these nascent markets.’
How about getting Ofcom off the markets’ backs?
Highfield’s last point is a stunner: ‘The regulators will undoubtedly determine if this whole issue is structural, or whether what we are witnessing is the ISPs fighting a commercial war on a public policy stage, and this has nothing to do with content providers or the BBC at all.’
Yeah. The regulators will determine – what’s best for the BBC, which has been making money out of commercial advertising for many years, on top of its £3 billion ‘license fee’ tax.
This is not just public sector hubris under a regime devoted to privileging state employees over the rest of us. The New Labour apparatchiks have a history of generating false demand for regulations, which lead inevitably to the quangos-for-the-faithful to service them – and the taxes to pay for them.
