The consultation on Lord Carter’s interim Digital Britain report closed on March 12. Now the Department for Culture, Media & Sport has published over 200 responses from media companies up and down the land. We summarised responses on Carter’s P2P strategy in a separate post - here’s a precis of other views…

—Virgin Media: The ISP expects widespread public demand for 20Mbps by 2012 but said e-government services like NHS Direct and DVLA only need 1Mbps, not the 2Mbps Carter suggested: “We are yet to be persuaded that a 2Mbs connection is necessary to enable under-served consumers to use key services.

It “welcomes the competition authorities’ timely intervention in response to the ... recent Kangaroo joint venture proposal” and any future proposals must be similar scrutinised. On that note, Virgin acknowledged BBC’s Project Canvas has “potential consumer appeal” but stressed it must be compatible with its own 50Mbps-and-beyond network, terrestrial and satellite: “Any content delivered through such an interface should be made available to competing platforms on fair and non-discriminatory terms.”

—Microsoft: “The self-regulatory approach that currently exists is the most flexible and appropriate way of monitoring and acting on inappropriate content.” Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) said Carter omitted key issues like “digital identity infrastructures”. “What is lacking from the Interim Report, however, is any mention of the role that spectrum sharing ... could play.” Microsoft backed the proposed “Rights Agency”.

—Digital Rights Group: “In a strict sense, there is no need for BBC Worldwide to exist at all. BBC Worldwide is acting in an unwarranted and predatory manner from a position of privileged access to content.”

—The Newspaper Society: “There are BBC matters which our members are interested in exploring, such as unrestricted access to the iPlayer.” On Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Yahoo: “These ‘monsters of the Internet’ are attempting to build a business model - which competes with our own industry - on the back of newspaper editorial and sales investments.” The society repeated its call for call to ensure local councils must buy ads in its papers, and this week won an inquiry in to the industry from the Culture, Media & Sport select committee.

—Orange: “We propose to invest in expanding our mobile network to deliver universal broadband, and allow other mobile operators to use it on a commercial basis, provided we are allocated 900 MHz spectrum.” But this “universal” would only extend the 93 percent 2Mbps connectivity achieved through copper-wire to 98.5 percent. “As an ISP, Orange receives no benefit from customers sharing files, but is happy to explore appropriate measures further. An ISP-funded Rights Agency does not seem a fair way of doing this.”

• Digital Britain Consultation: Mixed Views On Anti-P2P Strategy
• Digital Britain: Rights Agency Would Oversee P2P Warnings, Aid Court Actions
• Digital Britain Report: A Letdown That’s Merely A Meta-Review
• Digital Britain On P2P: More Warning Letters, More DRM, Enforcement Issue Fudged