Information society : agenda for action in the UK : evidence received after 31 March 1996 / Select Committee on Science and Technology.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee.
- Date:
- 1996
Licence: Open Government Licence
Credit: Information society : agenda for action in the UK : evidence received after 31 March 1996 / Select Committee on Science and Technology. Source: Wellcome Collection.
40/324 page 342
![23 April 1996] Lord Flowers contd.] (Mr Phillis) \ think in the last year there has been some very considerable clarification about the sort of regulatory framework that might emerge and the DTI’s consultation paper on licensing and regulating conditional access and subscriber management systems through Oftel we believe to be a sensible approach and one that we support. I think the Committee will be aware that the DTI’s consultative paper proposes that there should be separate licences issued to conditional access systems and to subscriber management systems, that they should be separately accounted for in the finances of the organisations who operate such systems, that there should be open and fair and reasonable access for other service providers. I believe, my Lord Chairman, that is a very important point. That links, of course, to the fact there should be non- discriminatory tariffs in terms of the pricing to those that wish to use such systems. These points are covered in the DTI’s consultative paper. I think there are a number of points which perhaps deserve some consideration within that regulatory framework. We believe there is a case that the tariffs for access to such services ought to be published so it is clear to any provider of services the charges that they would have to bear and that they are broken down between the various parts, by that I mean the subscriber management systems which some want to use and the encryption and decryption systems which others might wish to use. I think a final point which would concern us as broadcasters is that there should be open or shared technical standards across all such conditional access systems to avoid the unnecessarily wasteful duplication systems which would require an individual citizen or householder to have more than one decoding box within their home. That inter- connectability, those open standards we think are important issues also. Whilst the regulatory framework is obviously deeply important I think the way in which it is applied is equally so. On all such matters one would like to hope that means are delivered where there is speedy and effective enforcement of any such licences or conditions but I think broadly the progress that has been made over the last 12 months the BBC would support. 467. A number of our witnesses have said something to the effect that the present regulatory system as operated by Oftel seems to imagine that you can treat the whole thing on a United Kingdom basis whereas the superhighway is global if anything and much of what you do is global also. (Mr Phillis) That is right. 468. For that aspect of it Oftel’s regulatory framework is not appropriate, that is what has been said to us. Have you any comment? (Mr Phillis) 1 think on the face of it, my Lord Chairman, that must be true but of course the positions that we have made in our submission and to which I have just responded are equally applicable also to Brussels and to European legislation. Certainly the BBC has been making these general points of principle known and explained within Brussels and within the European Union which is obviously an important extension to that requirement. [Continued Lord Gregson 469. Are you satisfied that devices like encryption and so forth are sound enough to enable the sort of services that you are talking about to be conducted properly? I am thinking about the fact that you can now buy in Amsterdam decoders. There is a Hacker’s Monthly available now which gives you all the information you require to make your own. It has never been possible, even the Department of Defense in the States have never been able to secure their systems despite their vast expertise that goes far beyond anything that has been done on a commercial scale. Do you think this is a possible threat to these complex systems that are now being put into place? (Mr Phillis) 1 do not think anyone can ever be totally confident that the systems are absolutely secure— 470. We know they are not. (Mr Phillis)—there will inevitably be a growth industry for those that choose to pirate or to hack and there is always that risk. I think it is incumbent on those that provide the various encryption systems constantly to be trying to improve and ensure the necessary security requirements that you allude to. 471. The question I want to ask is do you think it will ever happen? (Mr Phillis) 1 believe it will be a constant process of competition between the providers of the service and those that are always trying to find ways of cheating the system. 472. Do you think they will ever win? (Mr Phillis) 1 am afraid I could not venture an opinion genuinely because I am not sufficient of a technologist to know what developments there might be in that area. You point out very properly the risks and dangers of such systems. Lord Haskel 473. Coming back to the regulatory framework, I wonder if I could ask a rather more commercial question. As a public service broadcaster financed by a licence fee, do you feel that you should have to pay for access to the information superhighway? Do you feel that your’s should be a public service which you should not have to pay for because in a way the public has already paid once by virtue of the licence fee or do you feel that you should pay for access like every other organisation? (Mr Phillis) 1 think the BBC has a number of different roles both as a provider of services being our prime purpose and the majority of those services being of a public service nature, although certainly the commercial opportunities to provide services on the superhighways are something we are very well aware of and indeed will attempt to exploit to the benefit of the licence fee payer by generating supplementary income. I think in so far as we are looking for access to a “must offer” requirement by satellite delivered systems, yes of course we expect to have to pay for the transponder and for the decryption of services, and rightly and properly so in terms of the user. Our concern in that respect is that the services are on offer to public service broadcasters or other free to air services on appropriate and fair](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32218631_0040.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
