In Defence of ISPs

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Britain are having a bad year. First, the Digital Economy Act passed into law requiring ISPs to monitor and pay for part of the illegal downloading prosecuting process. Then, Net Neutrality is gaining steam and if an expected decision is made by the EU shortly it will require ISPs to fundamentally change the way they do business. And now, as of yesterday, ISPs will be forced to retain all of our digital data on behalf of the Coalition Government.

What next? Will ISPs be required to bake bread and deliver it fresh daily to ever customer?

Consumers in the UK are blessed with a wide range of choices when it comes to getting online. ISPs provide various means of access from cable to phone lines and offer different service levels depending on location, need, and cost. We even entrust ISPs with our private data and communications that we use on a daily basis online. Like every other business, some ISPs provide better service than others. Over the summer, Ofcom launched an investigation into advertised speeds for broadband which resulted in the creation of a voluntary code of practice and better business practices. All in all, in the UK we enjoy choice in how to connect to the Internet, unlike our American friends where provider consolidation has left few options in ISPs.

In spite of this diverse market, the government is trying to do everything it can to stop it from growing. The Digital Economy Act not only requires ISPs to monitor, track, and store traffic relating to illegal music downloads, but the DEA will force ISPs to pay for 25% of this entire process. So ISPs have to bear the administrative and financial burden of this in real terms – not just the cost of the process, but the cost of time and manpower. Additionally, the issue of Net Neutrality which is growing here in the UK and the EU may soon result in an EU directive requiring ISPs to manage their network traffic equally. This will result in a fundamental change in how they do business driven by the government and not business needs. (For more information on Net Neutrality see the recent post here). Now, if the news reports are correct, ISPs will be forced to retain all data passing by on their networks. Again, this will take time and cost away from their core business – providing access to the Internet for their customers.

All of these new, legal requirements create undue burdens on ISPs. Forcing ISPs to store data, pay for illegal download prosecuting, change their traffic management and etc means that time, money, and people are taken away from their core business practice. ISPs are being disincentivised one requirement at a time to engage in providing Internet access. By taking away the opportunity and resources to innovate within their own business on their own time, ISPs will slow down investment in new technologies or worse – leave the industry altogether. This means that the UK won’t see new or cheaper ways to get online across the whole country and the UK won’t see new jobs and businesses created as a result of technological innovation. Wasn’t all of this part of the Coalition Government’s programme?

By Dominique Lazanski

Comments

[Andrew Ampers Taylor]

Remember Corporal Jones?

"They don't like it up 'em!"

So the Governments are doing their best to destroy the Internet.

Ampers.

[MarkJ (ISPreview UK)]

I like the line in your last paragraph: "ISPs are being disincentivised one requirement at a time to engage in providing Internet access". I think that sums the entire problem up quite nicely.

However ISPs won't be "forced to retain all data passing by on their networks", that's not feasible. The data retention plans currently only demand basic IP access logs, not content.

[Dominique Lazanski]

Thanks Mark. I am glad to know that the data retention plans aren't as burdensome as I had read about. I do worry, though, that the government may have more drastic plans for data storage down the line.

[alastair]

"The Digital Economy Act not only requires ISPs to monitor, track, and store traffic relating to illegal music downloads"

No, it doesn't. Have you actually *READ* what it says? I have, and it doesn't say that!

What it requires instead is that ISPs keep track of notifications they are sent by copyright holders that their customers may be infringing, that they provide a way for copyright holders to obtain lists of repeat infringers, and that they send warning notices to their customers informing them of the illegality of their alleged behaviour and the possible consequences.

Further, it's only if, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, these measures don't work to reduce piracy rates, that Ofcom would be instructed to tell the ISPs to take further technical measures, which might include disconnection, but there will be an appeal process for this. (And, I might point out, that most ISPs already state in their Terms of Service, which form part of the contract with their customers, that their service may not be used to infringe another party's copyright, and that the penalties for breaching the ToS or other parts of the contract include disconnection; that many ISPs generally choose not to enforce their own contracts in this regard, even when infringement is blatant, says quite a lot about the attitude of those ISPs to other peoples' copyright. Nor is it, as some claim, a requirement to consult a court before acting on the terms of your own contract; on the contrary, the courts are there for use only in cases of dispute, where you have acted but the other party to the contract disagrees that it is contractually allowed.)

[Demeter]

" All in all, in the UK we enjoy choice in how to connect to the Internet, unlike our American friends where provider consolidation has left few options in ISPs."

Would you care to document that ?

I had fast (> 4Mbps) broadband in the US from 2000-2006 and never had any problem, either in provision or service.

Since returning to this country I have had nothing but utter crap in both.

What we are forced to accept by the telcos in this country is by comparison with elsewhere little more than a rancid egg. We just prefer to swallow the BS they dish out rather than think for ourselves.

[Dominique Lazanski]

Consolidation in the telecoms industry in the US has been taking place over the last 30 years. I would not disagree that you may have better and faster service thanks, in part, to private investment in infrastructure in the US, but the fact remains that there is less choice in the US than the UK at this very moment.

For more information you can follow the history of the phone deregulation in the early 80s and then the re-consolidation from the late 1990s onward in the US. Wikipedia, the FCC, etc all have posts and articles on this topic.

I also think that as wireless Internet or mobile Internet connections and cloud computing grows we will see the game changing.