Yesterday The Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) Regulatory Discussion Group met up in a discussion focused on regulatory schedule for the next eight months.

The group debated the 'take up' broadband can be encouraged where the group agreed the solution is two fold:

1. The benefits of broadband need to be made clear to both business and residential user

2. Roll out will only be successful if consumers start using more applications that they can see benefiting their day to day 'experience' and benefit their businesses.

The BSG are interested in addressing a few key areas they believe will be key to driving the up take in broadband including, Investment, Regulatory Issues, potential capacity requirements, future network requirements bandwidth requirements, scenario planning and convergence. Obviously, this is an important and very wide brief. Yet trusting that the broadband will actually get to all parts of the UK - it is important that these issues are addressed as part of the wider picture.

However, the point was raised yesterday that there are still several issues in relation to access and competition that still need to be addressed. Some key regulatory issues including Street Works, LLU and wholesale IPStream pricing need to be resolved before the UK has a chance of catching up with the rest of the Europe in broadband roll-out. These points and the usual call for Ofcom to challenge the 'antiquated incumbent' that hasn't changed the 'way it has operated as a Telco for the last 100 years' were raised.

The next important consultation will be the Telecoms Review Phase 2 which will be published shortly.