http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/UK-Article ... /ba-p/3917The End of the Small ISP? Why CCDP could Make or Break Small Providersby EmmaByrne on 21-05-2012 12:01 AM - last edited on 21-05-2012 01:08 AM by Administrator richi
Industry experts are concluding that the proposed Communications Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP) legislation could be bad news for all but the very largest ISPs. Emma Byrne explains why small and medium ISPs are increasingly concerned about the CCDP bill.
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The potential anti-competitive effect of the CCDP is high on the list of many ISPs’ concerns. Cambridge University professor and security expert Ross Anderson told the conference that the proposed legislation would be “great news for BT and terrible news for Virgin and many small ISPs,” as the bill proposes using public funds to rebuild BT’s infrastructure.
Trefor Davies, CTO of independent ISP Timico and on the Board of the 210-member strong Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA), voiced his concerns that the smallest ISPs would also be the ones who bear the brunt of the surveillance costs: “There are huge, undefined, hidden costs.” He explained that many ISPs have been through mergers and acquisitions. As a result they have a mish-mash of servers and systems, so the amount of effort required to implement communications-data-monitoring software will be highest among the smallest ISPs, he said.
“I’m not really sure what we are expecting out of government in the Queen’s Speech. We’ve not been party to any kind of specification, whether we’ll be expected to do any pre-processing of any data before it goes into a black box,” said Mr. Davies. Repeated requests for information from several organisations have been met with either silence or contradictory answers, he said.
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