When Lord Corbett’s researcher Des Hughes stood up at a recent Westminster eForum and labelled Ofcom’s Communications Consumer Panel the “Industry Backside Protection Unit”, he sent a tremor through an otherwise cosy meeting of Britain’s broadband elite.

But was he right? Is the expensively assembled panel really looking out for British broadband customers? Or is it more of a lapdog than a watchdog?

The Communications Consumer Panel (formerly known as the Ofcom Consumer Panel) was set up in 2003 with the aim of “influencing Ofcom, Government, the EU and industry to protect the communications interests of consumers and citizens”. It describes itself as an “independent advisory body”, although that’s applying a liberal definition of the word “independent”: the panel is paid for by Ofcom, and its staff are Ofcom employees.

And it most certainly isn’t run on the cheap. It has ten panel members, a PA, advisors, a part-time press officer and a 2008/9 expenditure of £712,300. Its chair, Anna Bradley, is paid £30,900 a year for a commitment of only six days a month – which equates to a pro-rata annual salary of more than £110,000, only £17,000 less than the Prime Minister earns.

Value for money?

So are consumers getting value for money? The panel started to earn its keep in 2007, when Bradley’s predecessor Colette Bowe called for a broadband Code of Practice that, among other measures, would free consumers from their contracts “if the actual line speed is significantly lower than the package they bought”. Yet, by the time Ofcom drew up its voluntary Code of Practice in the summer of 2008, that clause had been dropped. Nevertheless, Bradley declared the Code a “welcome move”, with no hint of official reproach for the regulator’s failure to free consumers from onerous contracts.

And what became of the consumer champion, Colette Bowe? She was promoted to the main Ofcom board and is now chair of Ofcom itself.
With Bowe out of the way, it falls to Bradley to lead the consumer charge, but her calls either seem to be ignored or unambitious. Last summer, she urged broadband providers to advertise average, rather than up-to, speeds, but her recommendations appear to have fallen on deaf ears with ISPs and Ofcom.

And when it comes to broadband speeds, Bradley seems out of touch. At the Westminster eForum she described 2Mbits/sec connections as “enough for today”, even though Virgin Media is offering connections 25 times that speed. Her claims also clashed with Virgin’s head of broadband, who told the audience that the HD version of the iPlayer (which consumers already pay for via the licence fee) already “requires 5Mbits/sec in a very continuous and consistent manner in order to deliver its services”.

Although Bradley added that 2Mbits/sec was “absolutely not enough for tomorrow”, she stopped short of calling for the 25Mbits/sec connections that Alcatel-Lucent’s Simon Loe said were necessary to “deliver all of the public services that we can think of today, plus all of the video and other consumer-orientated services.”

Technical know-how

Although several members of the Consumer Communications Panel have worked in IT, Bradley herself has no technical background. So where does she turn for expertise? “The panel does seek advice from technical experts. For example, in September the panel asked the chief executive of the Broadband Stakeholder Group to present to its meeting,” a spokesman told PC Pro. That’s the same Broadband Stakeholder Group chaired by Kip Meek – a former Ofcom board member. “The Panel also receives regular technology briefings from Ofcom experts,” the Panel spokesman added. So the “independent advisory body” is taking a technical steer from Ofcom and former Ofcom bigwigs.

Meanwhile, consumers – the people the Panel are meant to represent – are kept at arm’s length. The public (and the press) are barred from the panel’s monthly meetings. The panel doesn’t deal with individual complaints about telcos or ISPs, so has no first-hand experience of the issues affecting consumers, and its website makes no attempt to encourage public feedback, bar an email address for Bradley that’s tucked away on the Contacts page.

“The panel engages with a wide number of bodies that represent and work directly with consumers such as CAB, Which?, RNIB, Consumer Focus and so on,” the panel spokesman stated when asked how it canvasses consumer opinion. “The panel draws on the experience and expertise of its members and also commissions research to give insight into the impact of policy and technology developments on consumers.”

The Communications Consumer Panel that doesn’t talk directly to consumers, but regularly holds closed meetings with Ofcom and the industry: from an outsider’s perspective, the Backside Protection Unit label seems entirely justified.