So who are the heroes and villains of broadband?

The Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) has announced its Internet Villain and Internet Hero finalists for 2009, with the winners to be announced at the glitzy annual ISPA Awards in July.

The Hero candidates are the Featured Artists Coalition, the European Parliament, Thomas Gensemer and someone called Lord Carter. We can only hope it's a two horse race between the Coalition and Gensemer: the former for recognising that it's up to the music industry to work out a fair billing method for music, rather than bleating at the ISPs for letting people download illegal freebies - the latter for masterminding Barack Obama's genius online US presidential campaign.

The Villains consist of Baroness 'green shoots' Vadera, the European Parliament (again), French President Nicolas 'HADOPI' Sarkozy and Stephen Conroy/the Aussie government. It's a fair old rogues gallery, which is too close to call, but we'd probably go with the Aussies, simply as it's an Ashes summer.

"The announcement of the Internet Hero and Internet Villain are always eagerly anticipated and give the Awards night a great sense of occasion," said Nicholas Lansman, ISPA secretary general. The trade organisation's prestigious awards have been running since 1999 and celebrate innovation and best practice within the broadband industry. They take place on July 9 at the London Marriot Hotel, Grosvenor Square, and tickets are available now from the ISPA Awards website.

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