Computer Weekly - Tuesday 5th October 2004 - IT industry must have the freedom to grow

Shadow minister for industry and technology for the Conservatives, Michael Fabricant, explains why a light touch from government is the best approach

Earlier this year, I attended a broadband conference where David Isenberg, one of the American founders of the internet, said of the Telco's: "Just give us a broad pipe then get the hell out of the way!". After all, it wasn't so long ago that telephones were hard wired into the wall and you got what you were given by BT.

The Conservative view of computing and the internet age is not too dissimilar. Legislate if it is an aid to the industry and to growth, otherwise just let the industry experts get on with it.

Of course, there has to be some legislation. Intellectual property rights need to be protected, infrastructure needs to be secure, a safe system for cash transfers need to be encouraged, and the tax system must be transparent and user-friendly. Monopolies must not be allowed to strangle development. Local loop unbundling has become more viable recently, but France and Germany still have more open systems. And like the present Government, we believe cyber-squatting has to be controlled - though the Labour Party recently registered four websites in the name of Michael Howard!

There must also be a greater understanding by Government of the fragility of the network. The US has established an agency specifically to counter cyber-terrorism. The UK has no such agency and remains vulnerable. And it's not just terrorists and hackers. A major fire in a tunnel carrying fibre-optic cabling could severely disable telecoms in the UK. It's not just the West Coast Main Line train service which links the north-west to the capital.

Like the Model T Ford, the internet is still barely up and running. Despite the best efforts of spam filtering companies, spam is now estimated to account for 80% of all email traffic and this will get worse as the internet develops. Governments have a role to play in constructing cross-national agreements to ensure that the internet does not become constipated with the sludge of unwanted spam.

But what is the future of the internet? I believe the long-term future for the delivery of television will be via video streaming over what we now call the internet. And I am not referring to the herky-jerky pictures most people experience on their lap-tops. Digital television compression enables broadcast quality television streaming so that, in time, consumers will be able to watch ABC Sydney or WGBH Boston as easily as BBC2 at present. But this requires the delivery of true broadband: streaming rates of at least 2Mbps and probably 4. Companies like Video Networks in London are already providing a service of broadband TV on demand, but this is just a beginning. The present Government boasts and spins about the take-up of broadband in the UK, but who but a Government Minister would claim that 'broadband' is 128kbps? It may download photos faster than a 38kbps dial-up connection, but - like the Model T Ford - it won't win any Grand Prix nor will it deliver broadcast quality TV. There is a very real fear that just as we suffered by being the first nation in the world with a public TV service with a 405 line system, our present internet structure just won't meet the needs of the future.