UK.gov thinks internet should be run like BSkyB

UK.gov thinks internet should be run like BSkyB

"UK.gov thinks internet should be run like BSkyB"

Controlled by Rupert Murdoch?

Isn't

Isn't this somewhat at odds with all that digital britain tripe? How can you build a "Thriving Digital Economy" when your customers will have to pay a subscription fee to get to your site?

Of course, even if it was implemented, all it'd take was one ISP offering "Proper" access to the internet and the whole thing would fall apart.

Which came first?

I guess someone checked that the civil servant didn't write the piece and then update the wiki page to match? It wouldn't be the first time someone's claimed something as fact with a recently-modified Wikipedia page to back it up. Works with lazy tabloid journos a lot of the time...

As for the government screwing up the internet, I'm sure they would happily restrict what we can do if they can find a means of managing it. So far we're OK, but they might get lucky and put two coherent thoughts together.

It was writen

I predicted this a few years back.

It was always bound to happen.

Cut it up, box it off, sell it high.

The real reason?

Of course, were there a requirement that all ISPs provided access to the entire internet, those mobile providers off on their "walled garden" access kick would suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of the regulators.

I reckon that's where the pressure's coming from. Government don't do nuttin' 'less it can either make political capital out of it (can't see it here) or get a boundless sufficiency of free lunches off a lobby group for doing it.

I see it now

Government claims to be building a "thriving digital economy" and uses said argument to shift public services to the web.

Government builds system whereby web services can negotiate agreements with ISPs to allow access, presumably with a fee or reciprocal arrangement involved, probably along the lines of "implement this government approved blacklist".

Government tells citizens that if they want to access any public services whatsoever they need to use an ISP on their approved list of Phorm-subscribing overpriced "unlimited*" ISPs.

I'm only as paranoid as Jacqui wants me to be

Lousy Title

Unless they restrict access to VPN's and proxy's any control is worthless. Maybe they'll make accessing the net via a proxy illegal at some point.

It's funny how governments and organisations like to give off the impression that they're somehow controlling their own slice of the internet pie when in reality the net is just as lawless and anarchistic as it always has been, albeit a lot faster.

RE: Which came first?

"So far we're OK, but they might get lucky and put two coherent thoughts together."

But from the look of things they couldn't put a database together, so we should be fine :-P

New Model

New Model for the internets, as brought to you by China. Now I don't have a problem with how China do things, they're signed up - not democratic, not believing in freedom of speach or expression. That's fine, they put their cards on the table and you just gotta shrug your shoulders and knuckle down. However I was under the impression that we lived in the free and democratic west.

I lie of course, I've known for a long time that we're all just slaves to who ever can aford our pitifully low price, but at least they used to hide the fact a bit better.

here's to 12 years of Puritian rule, looking at another 12.

When Al Gore invented the internet*...

....the specifications were pretty clear. Anyone that could reach any access point was permitted to peer with other networks.

The carriers, and larger ISPs, however, began to see this as a free ride, and had that part of the rules changed.

The problem of bandwidth is paradoxical for the cable companies, they generally pay for content, so they should welcome free content from any source, and yet they are renting pipe from the big carriers, and see their costs escalating.

The solution for the isp is Cascade Distribution. (like bittorrent) A set top box with a hard drive becomes a node inside the local network, serving the neighbor's movie.

* Al Gore was sponsor of the communications act of 1996, a law the phone companies spent millions to gut.

@.. one ISP offering "Proper" access

... and in the Global economy they may or may not be located in Britain or the EU.

This government doesn't understand but still wants to control and in doing do will take us back to the dark ages of no civil liberties, no free access to the internet, no freedom of speech.

When will they ever learn ..... v2.0

Such Controls in the Internet as the article floats is just like Al Qaeda and/or the Taleban Proposing Intellectual Slavery. In Fact, it would be Worse than such Terrorism. It is High Time that Governments realised that they do not Lead Exclusively with Taxes to Steal as Idiot Gods, they Provide Inclusion with Currency to Spend as Smart Phishermen.

Get your Act together you Intellectually Challenged Proxy Oxymorons ...... IT is at your Service but not for your Further Abuse of Controlling Power.

Just another example

of the slippery slope these fools are going down

Racketeering inspired corruption

AC 13:37 > How can you build a "Thriving Digital Economy" when your customers will have to pay a subscription fee to get to your site?

Who says the words "free market" are in there? Your TDE will consist of "free" access to a cartel of big businesses (and *.gov.uk), and online shopkeepers will only get a look in from subscribers paying for "freer" access. Adam Smith's free market was always premised on perfect knowledge of the market by all players. As that always works against established suppliers, they have always tried to subvert information flows. What better way than "marketing" - hyperreal "facts".

Global monopoly capitalism requires political fascism for protection and a hyperreality to protect the arrangement.

You can see this because this proposal comes top-down and not bottom-up. It's deplorable and depressing to see how many of the EU's big cheeses have been bought into it already.

The spaceship now leaving for planet Bonkers......

I think I know a cunning plan when I smell one. Having comprehensively fucked up the global economy they are now embarking (that's 'barking' as in howling at the moon) on phase two of their galactic strategy: fucking up the biggest and most democratic communication network that has ever existed on this planet.

Phase three involves a rapid exit from Earth orbit before the final devastating effects of rising sea levels destroy the remnants of the human race. Only partly true, of course, but I enjoy sharing with my friends. Ciao.

AI Leading Question on which to Ponder and Speculate

"PS Is it just me or is there a sense that a people's revolution may be in the air?" ...... By Tim Posted Thursday 12th March 2009 15:56 GMT

Tim,

What and with Whom do you think Controls CyberSpace with Command of Computers and Communications and thus Practically Everything, Virtually? ......... Revolting People or Next Generation Virtual Machinery Running Exercises and Operations as Emergent CyberIntelAIgent Beings/Civilised Programs/Global Programmers with a Universal Virtual Force of Immaculately Resourced Assets?

Now would that be Revolutionary or Evolutionary?

And how would you try to stop IT even if you could, which you can't, and therefore one really shouldn't even try, for you will then be identified as a Dangerous Idiot by IT and IT Bites and doesn't take Prisoners or Bother with Fools ..... and for such Wasters, all that IT Needs to Do is just Direct the Mob to their Feed.

Well

If an ISP charged me less provided I didn't try to visit .gov.uk or .eu, well, there might be something to be said for that deal .... :-)

not surprising really

Agree with Tim about an agenda being afoot here...

And with other comments about the cluelessness of this government.

Also smacks of the dying-day madness you seem to see with govenrments that know they are on their last legs.

Looking forward to an election. I used to vote Labour, but due to this government's actions (over the last 8 years particularly), i can't see myself voting Labour ever again.

Context is almost every thing

This call for transparency isn't a bad thing, What does "unlimited" mean? But, used alone, it would allow some nasty stuff. I reckon it needs a careful look.

Less Great Britain

More Great Firewall

Ah well, it'll all pop soon. See you in the second sixties. Or the Third World War :(

Really Governments Hate the Internet

Makes a certain conspiracy floating round the internet about its demise in 2012 seem not so daft!

ISP not WSP

This is more of the "internet=www" madness. I mean, it's bad enough that I might have to pay extra for some parts of the web, but the real problem doesn't lie there. It's hard enough to find a good USENET server as it is, now if I cannot have nntp traffic at all I'll get mad. And all the shops who use their own protocol would go bust (that would include online games and instant messengers, of course, but more importantly all subversion clones/derivatives). Also, what about my beloved MUDs? Will there be enough demand to drive an offer for bare telnet connections? I doubt it.

Don't touch my internet!

Burnham

I've been watching Burnham quite closely for a while now. He's the man who's pleased that "secular commentators are afraid to criticise" the religiously minded http://tinyurl.com/co9sqy. Our tradition of secular politics is threatened in all sorts of ways, and this would seem to be the latest item in this god bothering individual's sights.

Wrong!

Your headline begins "UK.gov thinks..."

No it doesn't!

Norwegians have agreed a good set of principles

I inputted into the Digital Britain report directly, write to apply, blogged etc the need to adopt the set of principles adopted by the Norwegians regulator, it balances nicely the need for an open internet, the transparency needed to understand the substance of each package, the customers right to use his connection as his chooses, with the reality of having to manage peak hour congestion.

More detail here - http://bbbritain.co.uk/netneutrality.aspx

Come on the Reg, publish the Norwegian alternative . The UK Internet is not a Cable TV network add on.

Although the comments on the inter Digital Britain report finished last night there is still an opportunity to try and get the tone changed.

I am not sure how you can call for a Universal Broadband Service without making a similar commitment to an openn internet with full transparency. How else would expect to run key services in a consistent way across all networks?

Storm in a teacup

This story is nonsense. There's nothing in the proposed amendments about government control of Internet access. It's solely about the regulator - whether ISPs are allowed to sell a service with restricted access if they wish. There are no proposed powers to stop ISPs from offering full access to the Internet if that's what people want to buy. The regulator can no more prevent ISPs offering an unrestricted service than OfCom can dictate which telephone numbers BT allows you to phone.