Lord Carter releases Digital Britain report

PEGI, the victor

Interestingly, videogames actually get a mention in the report, with the announcement that Lord Carter has sided with a PEGI rating system for games. PEGI stands for Pan European Game Information, and is an age-rating system currently used to classify games.

The system has been working alongside the BBFC, which has prompted some confusion among parents as each game was essentially classified twice.

Lord Carter's decision means that the BBFC will no longer rate games, and PEGI will be the only rating system, which should cut down on consumer confusion. This was something that was asked for in the Byron report a year ago.

ELSPA (made up of gaming software publishers) had been supportive of PEGI to take full control of the ratings system.

This won't mean much for consumers, other than the famous BBFC ratings logos will disappear, replaced with the rather unfamiliar PEGI logos.

DAB hand

DAB may not have been the success that the government would have liked it to have been but Lord Carter has announced that there are plans to switch off the analogue radio signal by 2015.

This is three years after its plan for analogue TV signals which are due to be switched off by 2012. Not only will the government have to work at getting DAB into people's homes (something that shouldn't be too much of a problem) it will be working with the car industry, so that the signal will stretch throughout the country's roads.

Colossal disappointment

In the end it seems that the Digital Britain report will be remembered for what it hasn't managed to sort out, rather than what it has.

The Conservatives have already branded the report as a "colossal disappointment".

'Broadband for all' is a proud and very British statement, but without highlighting exactly how this works, means that the majority of Lord Carter's expansive document houses not much more than conjecture and empty promise.

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Like this? Now read Gary Marhall's 'Digital Britain: 7 things you need to know'.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.

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