The final Digital Britain report has been published. It arose out of an action plan commissioned by the government in 2008 on the future of the digital and communications industries. The plan was aimed at encouraging innovation, investment and quality in the digital communications sector. An interim report was published earlier in 2009. The final report contains the following:
- Government commitment to achieving universal Internet connection speeds of 2Mbps by 2012, with faster speeds of 40Mbps by 2017.
- A £6 per year tax on all copper telephone and cable television lines to fund £150m of infrastructure developments per year so that everyone in the UK has access to broadband.
- Desired reduction of online piracy rates by 70-80%. To achieve this, the government will consult with Ofcom on legislative steps to reduce copyright infringement. Ofcom will need to notify account holders that their account appears to have been used for copyright infringement, and then make available anonymised data to enable serious repeat offenders to be identified so that rights owners can issue proceedings and go after persistent infringers. If the 70% reduction has not been achieved within a year, a number of technical measures will be imposed on Internet service providers to block, cap bandwidth and filter content. There is no reference to disconnecting offending file-sharers.
- The 20-year 3G mobile phone licences will be extended indefinitely to encourage investment.
- Radio will become all digital by 2015.
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