Not so much Digital Britain as Catch-Up Britain

The Digital Britain report has finally been published and it's not really that suprising that on the whole the media industry is underwhelmed by it. It's all well and good the government saying that Digital Britain should provide the stimulus for economic recovery but where is the support - in the form of tax breaks, grants, incentives - that the industry needs to drive stimulus.
And in terms of the measures that have been announced, they're fairly run of the mill and not really too controversial. Setting 2MB as the mandatory minimum threshold for broadband was widely expected- the only problem being that a number of countries are already way ahead of us routinely connecting average speeds of over 10MB. It's encouraging that the government is committing to broadband for all and has appointed Martha Lane Fox of Lastminute.com fame as its digital inclusion champion but there is as yet no clear indication of how the lofty ambition of broadband for all will be achieved particularly in the remote areas where the lack of broadband is a regular bane of residents' lives.

Perhaps the most controversial part of Digital Britain is the new 'Broadband tax' that the government is introducing to accelerate the rollout of next generation Broadband - much needed but should the public really pay for it?
On File sharing- the government have predictably put the ball back in the ISP's court making it their responsibility- under the watchful eyes of Ofcom- to monitor illegal filesharing. Only one problem with this, it is already the ISP's responsibility and filesharing and the uploading/posting of copyrighted content is still growing.

Digital Britain certainly marks a landmark moment but aside from the 'Broadband tax' will it actually affect the industry, brands and consumers that much? The answer in the short term is no, these are all very long-term measures and whilst increased government intervention would certainly not be helpful to accelerate the growth of Digital Britain, increased support and incentives would be and on those, you can't help but feel that the government has over-hyped and under-delivered.