BT and Cameron head net villains list

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 15 Jan 2008 at 12:19

BT Wholesale and Conservative leader David Cameron are among the nominees for the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) net villains of 2007.

BT earns its place on the roll of dishonour for "changing the whole engineering plan for 21CN [BT's next-generation broadband network] only six months before the launch date." BT announced last summer that it was changing the way customers will be migrated to the new network, causing consternation among ISPA members.

The new plans, according to ISPA, mean that ISPs can no longer migrate customers to 21CN in one, easy block, but have to do so one-by-one. ISPA also claims the lead time from ordering 21CN to actually being connected to the network has leapt from one day to 15-30 days.

BT says it doesn't deserve to be on the villain list. "BT changed the plan in response to specific requests from industry," the company claims in a statement. "We regret that we were not able to provide communications providers with more notice, but engineering the world's most ambitious next generation network and the services they support is no small feat!"

The Tory leader, meanwhile, earns his nomination for "buddying up with the music industry and trying to appeal to a younger audience." ISPA's clearly not impressed with politicians tinkering with technology: French president Nicolas Sarkozy also makes the list for "his proposed new tax on internet access and mobile phone use to fund France's two public television channels, which would be free of advertising."

Other villainous nominees include HMRC for its blundering incompetence in losing 25m child benefit records on a couple of CDs; while the British Phonographic Institute deserves scorn for "its heavy handed approach against consumers rather than engaging in constructive dialogue with the internet industry when dealing with filesharing."

Hero worship

On the flip side of the coin, ISPA has also announced its net hero nominees. Facebook is credited for "respecting peoples' browsing privacy by retracting the Beacon service, a system which automatically records users' online spending habits" - even though it took a sizeable user backlash to convince Facebook to do so.

The Financial Services Authority is praised for keeping financial websites in check, as is the chief executive of the Internet Watch Foundation.

And just to prove it doesn't detest all politicians, Labour MPs Stephen Timms and Derek Wyatt are afforded hero status for their work on pushing broadband speeds and the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group respectively.

The winners, and indeed losers, will be announced at the ISPA Awards in March.