Broadband for all…
24 April 2009
Should access to broadband at home be a right? Just how widespread is the belief that it's an essential service? And what are the implications for broadband speed - what would be needed to support the kind of activities that people want and need to do online? Three questions which our Panel has really wanted to test and explore with consumers in order to get their needs represented at the Digital Britain table.
So it was great to get the answers, in headline at least, off our collective chests and into a letter to Lord Carter. Yes, for some groups of people home broadband is already essential - families with young children, those who are physically or socially isolated, and often those who already have it at home, and can't imagine going back to life without it. And soon, it will be essential for all. These findings come from our most recently commissioned research (due for publication in May) on this area.
As our Panel chair Anna Bradley wrote in the letter to Lord Carter: "the tipping point will be when broadband does not just provide an advantage to people who have it, but disadvantages people who do not." And that tipping point is surely close at hand - given the rapid expansion of health and education services into the online world, not to mention the social, political, employment and entertainment networks which are migrating, or have developed entirely on the net. From Obama's online election campaign and the implications for political engagement in the UK, to Susan Boyle's 50 million hits on You Tube for showing the world that Britain really does have talent, it's rapidly, demonstrably becoming clear that being a citizen of the 21st century and participating fully in its culture will require access to broadband. So as Anna Bradley noted on the Blog the other day, the Panel is very pleased that in the Budget Report the Government confirmed its commitment to universal 2Mb/s broadband by 2012. But we await the Digital Britain Interim Report for details of how exactly this commitment will be implemented and how the Government will ensure that the speed of connection that will be delivered does not become outmoded. And as the Panel has stressed, the Government needs to make clear what activities people will and will not be able to carry out with the speed and type of broadband connection that will be available to them.