TCF Broadsheet - June

• Richard's Message
• Board Endorses Interception Guidelines
• Premises Wiring Consultation Underway
• MED Working Party Consults on Copyright

Richard Westlake, TCF Chair

Richard's Message

When I told a friend I'd been appointed independent chairman of the TCF, he suggested I ring Tony Blair and offer to swap jobs, because achieving peace in the Middle East might be a little easier.

It's certainly true that, within my first couple of weeks in the role, our chief executive Ralph Chivers departed for a new challenge, one of our newer members gave notice it was resigning from the Forum, and s.92 of the Copyright Act came back into the news.  

In my first month, I have attended a half-day strategy session and one TCF board meeting. Board discussions are lively, debate rigorous – not surprisingly, since most of those around the table are natural competitors with diverging commercial interests.

It is clear from the meetings I have attended, however, that every board member is committed to the TCF, and to making it an effective body that helps the industry work to everyone's benefit. Appearances occasionally to the contrary, then, we’re a team because we resolve any differences around the table, not out on the street.

An old business adage says, 'Control your own destiny ... or someone else will control it for you.' That’s what the TCF is all about, and it has achieved some remarkable successes in the last few years.

Lastly, for those who have been asking, the board has begun the process of finding a new TCF chief executive.

Board Endorses Interception Guidelines

On 5 June, the TCF board endorsed the recommendations of the working party it established to draw up an industry-wide approach to the 2004 Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act compliance requirements. Concerned about the risks of an uncoordinated approach, the TCF had asked the working party to develop standard guidelines to streamline processes and reduce confusion.

The guidelines took effect immediately. They are based on European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) standards, and designed to help network operators and service providers comply with the Act by consistently, cost-effectively and promptly meeting requests from authorised government agencies for Act-related interception services.

The guidelines do not stipulate how individual operators and providers should effect lawful interception capability, nor how they should go about agreeing with government agencies on the effectiveness of their capability.

Act Compliance

The Act requires operators to ensure public switched telecommunications networks (PSTN) have interception capability by 5 October 2005, and public data networks (PDN) by 5 April 2009. Operators have been engaging one-to-one with government agencies to agree on appropriate standards, processes and platforms for complying with the law, leaving the TCF concerned about the risks posed by lack of industry standardisation.

Network operators might differ in their interpretation of the Act’s requirements and provide agencies with different levels of service. Government agencies could liaise individually with each network operator, creating confusion and delay in getting the data they need.

Agencies could receive intercepted data from each operator differently, making it difficult for agencies to specify their interface technologies. This, in turn, would present network operators with difficulties interpreting and ensuring data integrity.

Risk

The TCF believed another risk in lack of industry coordination lay in individual government agencies specifying their own interception capability requirements, thereby creating more work for network operators and unnecessary costs. Individually developed “point solutions” would be inefficient and counterproductive, and only increase the likelihood of more regulatory intervention in the future to streamline processes.

"The new standardised set of guidelines offers the best solution for minimising these risks", says working party member, John Wilson from TelstraClear.  

Premises Wiring Consultation Underway

The Premises Wiring working party set up in March has held its first workshop, with key stakeholders, to discuss the draft Code of Practice for Residential and Small Office Premises Wiring. A draft will now be submitted to the TCF board for approval then released for wider public consultation.  

The TCF anticipates the Code of Practice will be ready for industry take-up by November 2009.

The self-regulated code is intended for use by interested parties involved in generic or “structured” cabling installations for telecommunications and other services in both residential and small-office premises. It is likely to be adopted by TCF members, consumers, building industry providers, suppliers of technology and service providers.

Installations

The code will set out minimum requirements, as well as a framework for more sophisticated installations. It will provide guidelines on acceptable practices, verification and qualification testing, and compliance certification.

The code will go a long way towards promoting end-user confidence in the capability of home and small-office installations to support a range of services.

Nearly all homes and small businesses are currently wired in accordance with PTC 103 (Code of Practice for Residential type and Small Office Customer Premises Wiring) for PSTN voice and low-speed data services.

Domestic Demands

The demands of home users for integrated services, ethernet LANs, climbing broadband line rates, and service providers wanting to deploy multiple services over a single telecommunications infrastructure are behind TCF’s belief that a code of practice is essential. Technical and functional demands of next-generation broadband services are likely to exceed the capabilities of PTC 103-compliant wiring systems.

Existing standards for generic home cabling include Telecom’s Code of Practice (PTC 106), currently promoted for use in fibre sub-divisions. But this standard is not applied in a consistent, co-ordinated way by those responsible for telecommunications wiring and/or those building or renovating homes.

Minimising Costs

A properly utilised code will protect home-owner investment, minimise direct costs of poorly performing home networks, and encourage uptake of next generation (multi-play) services.

Economic drivers for agreeing standards on premises wiring include international and national standards, where the recommendation is 1000BaseT (vs. PSTN), the universal RJ45 jack (vs. BT Jack), the advance of ADSL2+ and VDSL technologies (vs. PSTN and ADSL), and ongoing development of Cat 6 and Cat 6a UTP and fibre cabling standards.

The Premises Wiring working party comprises representatives from Chorus, Orcon, Telecom Retail, TelstraClear, Vector Communications, Vodafone and WorldxChange.

 MED Working Party Consults on Copyright

The Ministry of Economic Development working party reviewing the 1994 Copyright Act will consult stakeholders for three weeks in July. Its recommendations are expected to result in a bill re-draft just a few months later.

The working party comprises intellectual property and Internet law experts but no ISP or Internet user representatives. Even more disappointing for the TCF is that the brief seems to be to find ways of tweaking contentious section 92A rather than a more fundamental exploration of cost-effective, workable solutions to copyright theft.

The TCF firmly believes copy right theft is a bad thing and that the creative sector’s intellectual property rights must be protected. But the TCF, consumers and ICT sector organisations are united in their view that the current s92A is not the best way of doing so. ISPs should not be forced to interpret the law then police it by terminating repeat infringers’ accounts.

Definitions too Broad

The Act too broadly defines ISPs as anyone with a shared Internet connection or website, and termination can never be a workable solution for everyone this covers.  

Although the TCF has always strenuously objected to aspects of s92A – including its inconsistency with s92C – it nevertheless committed to developing a code of practice to help ISPs with implementation.

A draft code was released in February and developed further in response to rights holder and public feedback. That TCF work stopped only when the Government suspended the section’s March implementation with its announcement of the working party. 

The draft code did not represent the TCF’s view on the best way of dealing with copyright infringement. “It was a response to the law as it was, and nothing has changed our original view that the law is fundamentally flawed,” says TCF board chair Richard Westlake.

Opposition to s92A

While developing the code, the TCF ran public workshops, called for submissions, and discussed the issues with rights holder groups. Most written submissions opposed s92A’s termination requirements.

At the TCF we believe ISPs should not have to determine guilt on the basis of rights holder allegations. “To my mind, relying on ISPs to do so is a clear case of the cure being worse than the disease,” says Richard Westlake.

“Account termination is too drastic and unjust a response to online copyright theft – or more to the point, allegations of it. Especially at a time when Internet connectivity is almost as necessary as power and water.” 

The TCF believes the Government should do away with termination and absolve ISPs from unwanted and unworkable legal responsibility.

Contact Information

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