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A digital divide that must be bridged!
12th March 2010
An ambitious Government campaign aimed at getting 7.5 million new
internet users online by 2014 has been warmly welcomed by the CWU.
The National Digital Participation Plan, unveiled by the Minister for Digital Britain Stephen Timms, is particularly targeted at the elderly and less well-off, and aims to achieve a 60 per cent reduction in the 12.5 million people who do not yet benefit from internet access in the UK.
The announcement coincided with the publication of a BBC World Service poll which suggests that almost four in five people around the world believe that access o the internet is a fundamental right.
Contributed to by more than 27,000 adults across 36 countries, the survey found strong support for net access on both sides of the digital divide. Countries including Finland and Estonia have already ruled that net access is a fundamental right for their citizens, while international bodies such as the UN are also pushing for universal net access - which in the UK has been a key demand of the CWU's long-running Digital Britain campaign.
Announcing the National Digital Participation Plan, Stephen Timms said: "Being online is crucial for participation in 21st Century society. The internet unlocks a wealth of information and services, giving people more choice in life and access to a range of education, health and financial opportunities.
"That's why we have set an ambitious target to get 60 per cent of those 12.5 million people who aren't online, online in four years."
The announcement came just days before the launch of a new Government body which will be responsible for rolling out next generation broadband across the UK. Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) will drive forward the Universal Service Commitment to deliver 2Mbps to every household by 2012 and will manage the spend of the £1 billion Next Generation Fund to deliver next generation broadband to 90 per cent of the country by 2017.
Championing the Next Generation Fund - which has been resolutely opposed by the Conservative Party which has pledged to scrap the proposed 50p per month levy on fixed line telephone connections that will raise the £1 billion required if elected to government - Stephen Timms said: "Without public intervention, some rural areas and less well-off communities will be left behind, unable to reap the economic, health and education benefits that superfast broadband offers.
"We do not want to risk the digital gap widening, which is why we have put a team of experts in place to ensure further investment is targeted at those people without adequate access."
BDUK was launched on the very same day that the Commission for Rural Communities published a report that warns that the long-term future of the countryside is in jeopardy - partly because of a lack of broadband and limited mobile phone coverage in many areas is limiting the possibilities of economic expansion, driving jobs and young people away.
Andy Kerr, CWU deputy general secretary, pointed out the irony that the Tory Party is resolutely opposing the broadband levy on fixed phone lines when increasingly the rural lobby itself is crying out for public investment to ensure universal access to high-speed broadband.
"The leadership of the Tory Party is quite clearly out of line with opinion in its own heartlands," Andy said.
"To get decent jobs in to rural areas you need to have a good communications infrastructure - yet if you leave it to the markets alone to provide that infrastructure there are going to be huge swathes of the country that are communications black spots. In remote and sparsely populated rural areas there will never be a true financial return on the investment required - however important that investment is for reasons of social cohesion and inclusion.
"Is Cameron listening to his own people in the countryside or to Tory backers like Sky and the Carphone Warehouse Group which have their own vested commercial interests to fry? The answer, at the moment, would appear to be the latter - and I'd predict this issue isn't going to play well for the Tories in the forthcoming General Election campaign."
