Wire-tapping laws set to cost UK ISPs millions

NEWS The UK government's amendments to the Interception of Communications Act (IOCA) could cost large ISPs more than £1m a year, according to Demon Internet - the first ISP to complete a cost analysis of the proposals. Following the launch of a vague consultation document, and after talks with ISPA and LINX, the Home Office has announced that large ISPs such as Demon Internet must be capable of intercepting one in 500 dial-up or one in a thousand leased lines carrying IP data traffic, and it is expecting them to foot the bill. Demon has drawn up a white paper highlighting its concerns for submission to the Home Office. It argues that this edict would seriously undermine ISPs' competitiveness. Demon's Internet expert, Richard Clayton, carried out the analysis. He said that there are two ways of intercepting the IP traffic: through the network access system (NAS) or through the ISP's internal network. "To go through the NAS would reduce quality of service for other Internet users so it would have to go through the internal network. That would require putting in more bandwidth and equipment to duplicate traffic and send it to the law enforcement agency. When you are based on five sites like we are that can be very costly," Clayton argued. He continued: "The answer we got was really very surprising - it will cost us over £1m per year to do this which is 10 to 15 per cent of the total cost of running our network. This doesn't help us to compete." A UUNET spokesman added that for bigger ISPs the costs would be even higher. Following claims from smaller ISPs that this legislation would put them out of business, the Government indicated it would consider making exemptions, but Demon argued that it would create an imbalance within the system.