The Original Discussion Paper

The project would create new industries, new jobs, new export opportunities and new wealth. It would require capital investment in cable and control systems alone of the order of £2-3 billion [at 1981 prices] over a 20 year period and it would be financed in, stages, by the private sector.

The services provided to the individual UK consumer [men ,women and children] would include national broadcast television, national and international teletext, videotex, films, two-way transactional services for shopping and banking, home publishing, home educational services, home computing, home message mail and facsimile, and home alarm systems [fire, medical and intrusion and, even, electronic baby sitting.]

ConTel is not science fiction. At this time, there are some 17 major, privately financed, working, experimental installations in the United States providing the full range of services referred to above, using a variety of techniques, mainly videotex, two-way cable TV, and teletext. No-one, however, has yet built an integrated system of mass appeal and attractive operating economics. But presentation of the design can only be a matter of time, after all the economic and consumer measurement data has been collected, analysed and synthesised.

In the UK, apart from a Pay TV experiment, there is much talk but little action, primarily because ConTel does not easily fit into existing structures. Gas, electricity and water, at the turn of the century, faced similar predicaments.

ConTel offers a massive opportunity to create national wealth. ConTel touches many industries – manufacturing for the hardware, creative industries for the software, service industries for maintenance, distribution industries to deal with changing patterns in retailing, education industries for provision of new types of learning systems, new kinds of publishing industries to handle electronic media, and a host of new service industries to provide completely new types of service from home security to electronic baby sitting.

ConTel is not a company, nor an organisation. It is a concept. Many companies will spring up to provide the services. The liberalisation of the telecommunications monopoly is already provoking licence bids to provide network competition to British Telecom. The danger is that a piecemeal approach to competing for BT’s most profitable honey pots will cloud the overall information technology opportunity. ConTel is complementary to BT not competitive with BT although there are bound to be overlaps. ConTel does not seek to tap BT’s lucrative business telecommunications activity. ConTel seeks to create a new and infinitely larger business and, where practical, ConTel will interface with BT, just as roads connect with railway stations as complementary transportation networks.

The over-riding current requirement is to create an environment in which ConTel can exist. The major considerations are regulatory, legal and personal. The UK urgently needs an homogeneous communications authority on the lines of the US FCC [perhaps a British Communications Authority.] On the legal front the Office of Fair Trading has already established a working party on redefining consumer and contact law to cope with electronic transactions.

On the personal level, the UK must establish a Privacy Institution to protect the rights of the individual.

There are other, more practical, requirements. Technical standards need to be established to provide for inter-connection of different ConTel areas established in different areas. Operating licences for ConTel systems could be issued and regulated by a British Communications Authority [BCA] on similar lines to the IBA franchises. The BCA would also regulate BT, broadcast radio and TV and all private and public networks.

One of the major factors in improving the standard of living of the population in the last century has been the new services provided to the home- running water, electricity, gas, telephone and television. With the exception of television, all the services were pioneered by private enterprise and today none are subsidised by the public sector. The population is prepared to pay for services that have value and private enterprise is prepared to invest money in creating satisfied consumers through the provision of attractive services.

Developments in information technology now make it possible to deliver to the home services that substitute for existing services by being more cost-effective and new services that will create new wealth and directly improve the quality of life for the population. The technology to bring about the transformation already exists. What is unclear is the rate of change, the particular economic profiles of the different services that can be provided and the rate of acceptability by the consumer.

In pursuing the developments, there are also constraints brought about by the regulatory environment in the UK, the need for change in contract and consumer law to cater for the new electronic world and the need to protect the privacy of the individual.

In short, some existing institutions are unable to cope with the new media and a radical approach must be taken to build new institutions that are relevant to the last part of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st century.

ConTel is a conduit connecting what are today separate services to make them more accessible to the consumer, more usable and more effective. ConTel is based on multi-channel TV connected to household in much the same way as electric cable. The cable would typically have up to 150 channels and would plug into TV-like devices in the home as well as into home alarm systems and
environmental control systems. It would probably utilise a distribution box not unlike an electricity fuse box.

The channels would support both downstream signalling [for,say, broadcast TV] and upstream signalling [ for videotex, teleshopping etc.] Consumers would pay in much the same way as for today’s telephone – a flat rate service charge, plus metered charges for services used. Suppliers would rent channel time to advertise and to provide transactional services. Some channels would probably be reserved for public services.

Experimental systems, financed by private enterprise, need to be built and operated. UK cable is largely theoretical and urgently needs working experience. Consortia should be encouraged to create new industrial groupings and to spread knowledge.

A considerable amount of academic research is concurrently required, particularly economics [disposable income projection by socio/economics groups, service sector economics], demographics, behaviour, social and political perspectives, man/machine interfaces, as well as some engineering aspects.

Industry and commerce will need to analyse ConTel’s opportunities and constraints both individually and as interest groups. Investors will want to see factual projections based on practical results.

ConTel has lasting worldwide implications. The business should survive for around 100 years. The UK can build an industrial and knowledge base which would be highly marketable. In due course cable television will be seen as significant precursors for ConTel. Prestel, however, was technology -driven, cable television was market-driven. ConTel must be market-driven.

The convergence of advanced consumer electronics is every bit as vital for developing information-technology based industries as converging business electronics to provide office systems. There are likely to be more people in the home than in the office and ConTel will directly impact the quality of life.

ConTel is a simple idea. Private enterprise will connect the home to the world of ‘infotainment’ using environmentally acceptable cable. Satellite communications will be part of the system.

Government’s role is to create a framework within which ConTel can be achieved and regulated for the benefit of the nation. As a first step the Government should encourage private enterprise quickly to build and operate ConTel systems.

ConTel UK would be financed by consumers, suppliers wishing to use ConTel as a common carrier and value- added services provided by ConTel.

Information Technology Advisory Panel

The Information Technology Advisory Panel [ITAP] was established in 1981. It was and is common practice for British Governments to set up ad-hoc teams to advise on specific issues. These teams are generally recruited by civil servants and the people they select are not vetted for political allegiances. The selected people are usually expert in the particular issues that the Government wishes to explore. The people are not remunerated. The teams operate until the work is done and then they are disbanded. Team members normally receive a letter of thanks.

ITAP was unusual only because it did not work within a Ministry. The advisors were to provide advice to the Prime Minister and thus they worked in the Cabinet Office in Whitehall, London. This arrangement was indicative of the interest of the Government in Information Technology [IT] at a time when few people in Parliament and Whitehall had any real grasp of the potential of the new technology .One of the few was Kenneth Baker MP and he was made Minister of Information Technology[1981-1984.] Baker was instrumental in setting up ITAP and locating it in the Cabinet Office.

Six people were appointed as members of the panel. They were all working practitioners in IT with busy day jobs. I was one of the six. I never discovered the reason for my appointment. The panel was supported by Cabinet Office civil servants. We met and worked in the delightful surroundings of the Palace of Whitehall. ITAP was disbanded in 1986. Three reports were published.

Sadly I remember little of ITAP. My papers were lost or destroyed many years ago after a number of office moves. I do recall that colleagues and civil servants supporting us were exceptionally bright with a terrific work ethic. There was no time-wasting and a cheerful can-do attitude. It was an invigorating place to be.

At one of the first meetings, as the work plan was being developed, it was suggested that we could submit discussion papers on issues that the panel might find interesting. I thought of my cable idea, and then wrote a discussion paper about consumer telecommunications in the UK talking about jobs and investment opportunities around ‘infotainment’. [This paper is in the Archive as ‘The Original Discussion Paper’]. I never expected it to get more than a cursory look. Strangely enough it provoked much discussion and it wasn’t too long before the panel decided to put together a paper fleshing out some ideas. A small working party of which I was a member was set up to research and write the paper. We made a plan and implemented it, reporting back to the panel as a whole on progress and discussing issues as we found them .After a while, probably because we were asking many people many questions, it gradually emerged to other people in Whitehall that we were interested in telecommunications and television. These people were not enthusiastic about our research. There were the makings of a turf war.

We were not politicos. It had never occurred to us that there were politics in IT. We thought technology was a politics-free zone. How wrong we were.

In 1981, the UK Home Office was a conglomerate Ministry housing in effect the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice .It was also the dumping ground for any issue that did not fit neatly into other Government Ministries. This unholy confection proved to be the graveyard for many political careers. [Some of the absurdities were resolved when it was broken-up in 2007.]

One of the responsibilities of the Home Office was the allocation of the radio spectrum of the UK for various uses including broadcasting. Cable did not use the radio spectrum but multi-channel television would obviously have an effect on broadcast television and the Home Office issued licenses for the TV companies to use the radio spectrum. So there could be a Home Office interest but that didn’t quite square with the negative vibes we were getting. We thought our idea of using multi-channel television as the means to generate revenue to re-wire the UK was a technical/economic/industrial issue. We found out that television was a political issue.

As we neared completion of our work on the paper, the unhappiness of the Home Office was registering in high places. Some high authority decided there should be a meeting of all the interested parties to debate the issues and to reach a consensus. The meeting was called on a Saturday morning to be held on neutral turf at Lord’s Cricket Ground. All the interested parties were invited. So we duly turned up. We had no idea who would attend.

As the meeting gathered in a large room, a top table began to fill. The Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw, a prominent and much respected senior member of the Government was there. And then a shock! Settling herself at the top table near to Whitelaw was Mrs Mary Whitehouse, a media personality who was a vociferous critic of broadcast television for its depiction in thought, word and deed of anything sexual. The penny dropped! The Home Office reluctance to support cable was down to Mrs Whitehouse and sex.

The Chairman called the meeting to order, stated the purpose of the meeting and began to introduce the top table. Willie Whitelaw’s body language was amazing. He was sitting slumped forward with a lugubrious hang-dog look, his neck down as if waiting for the guillotine. The Chairman then began introducing Mrs Whitehouse and I realised we were going to spend the rest of the morning
being harangued about porn. The Chairman mentioned taste and decency and Mrs Whitehouse smiled knowingly. I thought this is crazy. So I jumped up from the back of the room and shouted- ‘Point of Information, Mr. Chairman.’ He stopped mid-sentence and stared at me. Privates do not interrupt Generals. I jumped in as firmly as I could and said – ‘Mr Chairman, if it would help the meeting, broadcasting is exempt from the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, hence the topic of taste and decency as perceived in broadcast television is much discussed. Cable systems, however, are not exempt from the legislation. There is no obscenity issue here. Thank you.’

There was total, absolute silence. Then, Willie Whitelaw’s face gradually started to change; first the most beatific smile I have ever seen appeared as he looked round the room and beamed glorious sunshine into every nook and cranny; he straightened up, breathed in and glowed over Mrs Whitehouse and I may even have seen slim halo over his head. Mrs Whitehouse scowled but said nothing at all during the meeting . I think that was the moment when the political battle was won.

The Government decided to publish our paper,’ Cable Systems’ HMSO 1982. There was absolutely no political input in the paper. It was genuinely independent. There was huge public interest, much debate and long arguments. But the Panel was finished with the subject and moved on.

Further Developments

The Government announced that it was setting up another committee, the Hunt Committee, on the day our report was published to take our proposals forward and work out how to legislate. The Government then passed the Cable and Broadcasting Act [1984] and the Telecommunications Act [1984]. The regulatory body, the Cable Authority began work in January 1985. New generation cable systems were now legal and regulated. As far as I know ITAP was never consulted about any aspect of cable systems after its report was published and ITAP never returned to the subject to review progress. At the first Budget after the report the Government abolished 100% capital allowances. Effectively, only start-ups could play the cable game.

As the new cable industry started to emerge, one great entrepreneur spotted an opportunity. Multi-channel TV on cable had been conceived merely as a means of funding the re-wiring of the UK to bring a new era of consumer telecommunications. [Satellite was seen as complementary, being useful for rural areas that would not be cabled for economic reasons]. But what if the means became the end? There were other ways of delivering multi-channel TV. Neither the Cable Systems report nor the legislation limited multi-channel TV to cable. What about satellite direct to the home everywhere? In a breath-taking entrepreneurial coup Rupert Murdoch set up BSkyB, took the UK multi-channel TV market and with it the revenue to re-wire the UK.

By 2007, 25 years after the ITAP report, the UK cable industry had consolidated into a single company with 95% of the market, passing around 12 million homes and serving around 5 million subscribers. BSkyB was serving around 6 million homes. Except for a number of cable systems, there was little prospect of delivering 50 mbps broadband to UK homes. BSkyB was selling a broadband telephone service as part of its TV service and had succeeded in achieving high revenues per subscriber. Most cable systems were offering or planning to offer telephone services. British Telecom were offering video-on-demand down a telephone line. The original dream was fractured; a great opportunity had been missed.

Conclusions

A number of conclusions can be drawn from the cable story. The first is that it is extremely difficult for governments to pursue sophisticated policies. Government tends to operate at the lowest common denominator and is a very blunt instrument. Governments find joined-up thinking virtually impossible. All of this is in spite of good intentions. The prime law of government is the law of unintended consequences. The second conclusion is that politics is about words and science is about facts. Politics is about compromise, science is about immutable laws. When politics mixes with science or technology, unintended consequences are virtually guaranteed. Lastly, how do you now get the UK re-wired? Easy! Change Building Regulations and make a minimum of 50 mbps broadband mandatory for new build homes. Then sit back and wait another 20 years.

Michael Aldrich, June 2011