Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
63-79)
MS GILL
PAYNE, MR
JONATHAN STEARN,
MR STEPHEN
HEARNDEN AND
MR PAUL
HOLOWAY
2 NOVEMBER 2009
Q63 Chairman: You will appreciate
that we overran slightly with our last witnesses, and I hope you
do not mind but I thought it was a fascinating session, particularly
towards the end. We are really grateful to you for coming before
us. I suppose you are representing the user community as opposed
to the provider community, in broad terms. I think you have all
provided us with written evidence, for which we are grateful.
Now that you have yourselves in order I will ask you to introduce
yourselves, starting on the left.
Ms Payne: I am Gill Payne; I am
Executive Director at the Commission for Rural Communities.
Mr Stearn: I am Jonathan Stearn;
I am a programme leader at Consumer Focus, and the key group of
consumers I am concerned about are the disadvantaged and vulnerable
consumers.
Mr Hearnden: Good afternoon, I
am Stephen Hearnden from Intellect, which is a trade association,
so not quite consumer but close.
Mr Holoway: Hello, I am Paul Holoway
from IT Support Line, providing IT support to users and small
businesses around Milton Keynes and Newport Pagnell.
Q64 Miss Kirkbride: Do you consider
that the Government aspiration of everyone having a minimum 2Mbps
broadband line is good enough?
Mr Holoway: I actually think we
should be a bit more ambitious. Although I see around Milton Keynes
0.5 Mb broadband for some of the users, I feel that we should
be pushing the boundaries forward than just stumping for 2Mb.
A lot of people have 2Mb or more, but there are still some users
on lower than 2Mb; but I think we should push the boundary towards
five or 10, or even towards the legendary 100 Mb sort of thing,
over a longer period of time.
Mr Stearn: We were trying to find
out where the 2Mb had come from. If you read the report it is
very difficult to fathom where it has come to. It seems to be,
"Okay, let us look at what is achievable and then go for
that as our target."
Q65 Miss Kirkbride: What do you consider
that definition to be—that it is the slowest speed, that
it is the average speed? What do you consider the definition to
be?
Mr Stearn: Again, looking at it,
it seems to suggest—and Ministers have said beforehand that
they are talking about the baseline, and it says in the report
at one point "baseline". So given what has been said
before, let us assume that what is being talked about is actually
the minimum. That is an assumption because it is not absolutely
clear within the report that that is what we are talking about.
The report talks about the average being 3.3 at the moment, but
we know from Ofcom that 4.1 is the average that currently exists.
One of the things I was quite concerned about within the report
is that they are talking about people, and getting past the technology
it is important to see the people behind this as well. They are
saying that 2.75 million people cannot get this speed. Also, elsewhere
in the report, it talks about 15 million adults not having access
to the Internet. That is the circle that needs to be squared.
Ms Payne: Obviously we are looking
at the rural community side of things. We are aware that there
are 1.9 million people who cannot get the 2Mb, and therefore from
our perspective that is a good starting point as a basis. It is
not good enough, but it is a good starting point, if you can reach
that number of people—which, by the way, is the size of
the population of Birmingham, Glasgow and Liverpool combined,
so quite a significant number of people.
Mr Hearnden: Can I come back to
the 2Mb. I agree with my colleagues that that should probably
be looked as a minimum and a stepping-stone to faster services.
We should be careful that 2Mb on its own, from a consumer point
of view what you might call an exact science. We need to be looking
at the sorts of services that consumers are likely to use. Certainly
my experience of using the Internet is that having a reliable,
robust service that is constant is probably more important than
the absolute speed. Clearly, the absolute speed is important if
you want to download a large file and you do not mind interruptions;
but if you are looking at something like I-Player you want something
that is reliable and constant so that you do not get the picture
stuttering when you are streaming it. That is something that the
industry is very mindful of in making sure that whatever we procure
in terms of the 2Mb, it is a service that the users will get value
from and will get a good service.
Q66 Miss Kirkbride: What about the
Government's commitment to this universal service? Should we go
down the Finnish road, making it a legal right?
Ms Payne: Making it a legal right
would be quite tricky. From our perspective, it is very much that
we think there are a number of issues that could be used to address
this problem rather than looking at a legal remedy in that instance.
We heard quite a lot about that earlier on. Looking at some of
the issues around a purely commercial solution, our belief is
that it is not going to deliver, and from what I heard earlier
today I am no more convinced by that. There definitely needs to
be some combination, we feel, of commercial, potentially from
the centre, but there are also things like community broadband
groups that are doing tremendous work to make things happen in
local areas. I think that a legal remedy would not necessarily
be the best solution right now.
Q67 Miss Kirkbride: Given that you
represent more rural communities, do you think it would be reasonable
to expect them to pay more, given the difficulties of providing
it?
Ms Payne: We are already. We are
saying we would like to see those costs come down for the rural
communities, but we do recognise that it is a huge investment
to reach them. The difficulty we have is that we are also here
to represent rural business service, and they are telling us that
they are disadvantaged in terms of being able to carry out their
business, to employ people and reach their whole potential within
those rural communities, which is a huge issue. We have then got
the whole area around the Government e-agenda, such as being able
to get your driving licence online, which we know that at the
moment is much more difficult for rural communities, but as more
and more services come along in that kind of way, rural communities
will be left. It is the same where we have farmers, who are also
being disadvantaged at the moment. There are considerable groups
where there is an expectation of being able to use these systems,
and they cannot.
Q68 Chairman: It is very difficult
to compartmentalise the questions and there is a range of areas
about the digital divide that we want to ask later.
Mr Stearn: We would like to see
it as a universal service obligation. We have seen a lot of commitments
from Government which do not end up being fulfilled. One of the
areas I work in is, for example, fuel poverty, and there was a
commitment to end fuel poverty amongst vulnerable households by
2010; well, that is not going to happen. The commitment to end
it by 2016—the Government even went to court to argue that
it did not have to stand by its own commitment. I think that commitment
tends to be fallible when it comes to Government, so obligation
is what we would like to see.
Q69 Miss Kirkbride: Tell me what
would be the difference between a commitment and an obligation—if
it is not a legal right?
Mr Stearn: It is very similar
actually to what would be the statutory responsibility to achieve
the target, rather than being able to argue you have not been
able to achieve the target because of budgets or changes in the
marketplace, for example.
Q70 Miss Kirkbride: So it would help
a bit!
Mr Stearn: It should, really,
yes.
Mr Hearnden: I would like to see
it as a universal service commitment. I think the industry is
stepping up with a number of innovative solutions that will deliver
by and large 2Mb. We heard from Avanti of satellite solutions
earlier. There are wireless solutions and new solutions coming
for extending the reach of copper. If we are flexible in terms
of the definition of 2Mb, the industry will be able to deliver
well nigh 80, 90 or 95% of the existing 1.9 million to give them
a near 2Mb service. That is providing we are flexible in the definition
of what constitutes 2Mb.
Chairman: Even flexibility of a definition
of 2Mb leaves me slightly concerned, but never mind!
Q71 Mark Oaten: You have touched
on the so-called digital divide. I guess what I am looking for
from Gill and Jonathan is for you to make a slightly stronger
case as to why we should give a damn. I live in a village in the
middle of nowhere, and I have accepted that is a lovely surrounding—there
are no buses, we do not get gas—so it is one of the prices
for living in rural communities; you do not get certain things.
Persuade me that I am wrong.
Mr Stearn: Let Gill give you the
rural one and I will give you an urban one. I think why you should
give a damn—I used to be the Director of the End Child Poverty
Campaign. We did a series of interviews with households living
on the poverty line. I remember distinctly a household living
in South London, a lone parent with three children. She had a
pay-as-you-go phone and a pay-as-you-go meter to pay for her electricity
and gas. They had no connection to the Internet. When I was talking
to the older daughter, who was 16, coming home from school, she
was late coming home because she had tried to stay at school to
do her homework because she had no Internet access at home. The
mother was paying about £240 more a year because she could
not use the Internet to get cheaper fuel, for example. This is
why there is a knock-on effect on consumers particularly on low
incomes not having access to the Internet. It is not only adults
but the impact it has on children as well and what they can achieve
at school.
Q72 Mark Oaten: That is a slightly
different issue; it is not a difficulty about getting the network
to them, is it?
Mr Stearn: It is because she had
no landline and the only communication she had was a pay-as-you-go
mobile phone, which she only used when she had any money to pay
for it. How do you get that family on to the Internet, and millions
of families like them? As I said, there are 15 million adults
who do not use the Internet, and only 38% of households on low
incomes have access to the Internet.
Q73 Mark Oaten: Let us separate the
issue of an urban area where you are trying to get to people who
have not access to it.
Mr Stearn: Who do not have landlines.
Q74 Mark Oaten: But there is a very
separate issue of how physically you get to a rural area where
it has just not been a priority.
Ms Payne: There are two things
on that. One is that you said you wanted to be convinced it is
important we get it to rural areas. Again, it is the sheer numbers
of people we are talking about here, and businesses—very
successful businesses. I was talking with a business man yesterday
who runs a global mining operation from a small village just outside
Stroud. In fact, he has invested his own money in setting up the
Internet access he needs to run that business. As a result he
can employ more people, improve the local economy and so on. So
it is making a bit difference in terms of employability. As you
said earlier on, there is the whole new schools agenda, which
is encouraging greater use of the Internet for getting school
lessons to pupils at home, and if they cannot have that, it will
be a huge disadvantage for children in rural areas. We have businesses
and we have children, and we have families. Where we fall down
is if we just focus this on areas about entertainment, because
it devalues the arguments. It is very important, but it is also
about businesses and people getting the education and skills they
need to contribute properly to the economy as a whole. That is
why I think it is important.
Q75 Chairman: The thing about entertainment
is that that is the big volume stuff, in terms of demand for service
in megabits per second. You are talking about a much lower capacity
issue. That is the point, is it not?
Ms Payne: Only if it is a stand-alone
system, and then it can go below the 2Mb. The 2Mb would be okay
in a stand-alone system, but if you are running a business with
more than one person or perhaps you have a business and a child
at home and you are doing something else, then it will not—
Q76 Chairman: But if you have a business
you can use the satellite systems we are hearing about, which
will give you very high speeds.
Ms Payne: Having talked with the
regional development agencies in the South East and South West
looking at this development, they are very supportive of that,
and that is a good solution.
Q77 Mark Oaten: Is one of the solutions
that the urban areas, where we have good coverage and good take-up,
should be subsidising for the investment that is required into
the rural and suburban areas where we have poor take-up?
Mr Holoway: Are we talking about
the 50p levy here? Is that what you are referring to?
Chairman: We will talk about the precise
mechanism later.
Q78 Mark Oaten: As a view of how
we move forward, not how it is done.
Mr Holoway: You could even structure
it so that the larger users of the Internet could pay more for
the lesser users because it is slower elsewhere around the country.
Mr Hearnden: I suppose the point
I was trying to make is that what this obligation or commitment
should be doing is making sure that everybody has the physical
ability to link up, but also the practical ability to link up,
and that brings in the whole issue of affordability. How do you
make it affordable for all those households that cannot at the
moment afford it? That is the key issue that is not really addressed
in this report at all.
Q79 Mark Oaten: That is a very important
point because it is creating this difference between access, which
is physical access or affordable access.
Mr Stearn: Yes.
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