Digital Britain Report: Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Being Digital
By “Being Digital”, the report means “interacting in some way with digital technologies”. It lists some of the benefits people see in not being complete technophobes and the use of technology in various sectors.
There’s a summary of the results of a survey which was conducted which found that people who have broadband have come to rely on it; that the consensus is that broadband is pretty much a necessity for those with young children or who live in isolated areas; widespread support for a broadband Universal Service Obligation; and that the expectation is that (at some point) people who lack broadband will be “at a significant disadvantage”.
Primarily, this chapter is for people who don’t really see the point of broadband Internet access.
Bullet-point summary:—
- Broadband is increasingly viewed as essential
- Increased roll-out of high-bandwidth broadband is important in order to support emerging applications (such as video streaming), though it doesn’t mention the operational requirements for these in any terms beyond “faster broadband connections of at least around 2Mbps”
- Social networks are becoming increasingly important to children
- Children who make use of the Internet (for educational purposes, obviously) tend to do better in their exams
- Digital skills, in some form or another, are now a requirement of “90% of new jobs”
- Technology is, as ever, getting cheaper, although there’s no mention of trade-offs (e.g., higher-bandwidth connections for less money in return for caps and throttling).
- Affordability is still a concern for some, especially those in difficult-to-reach areas and families with low incomes.
- Those with visual, hearing, and mobility impairments are less likely (42%, 32% and 36% respectively) to have broadband Internet access at home, compared with a national average of 60%.
- The Government needs to become net-savvy, rather than simply publishing information (the report terms this “of the web” rather than “on the web”, which makes sense, if a little buzzword-happy)
“Action points”:—
We invite the newly appointed Champion for Digital Inclusion and Expert Task Force (see below) to evaluate the work already underway, and if necessary, assess priorities for future work by industry, the public sector and other stakeholders.
We will ask the Consumer Expert Group to report on the specific issues confronting people with disabilities’ use of the Internet in Digital Britain as they have already done in relation to digital television.
We support the Working Group’s proposals for the formation of a Consortium of Stakeholders, led by Ofcom, to drive Digital Participation. Funding will be made available of up to £12m over three years from the Universal Service provision announced in Budget 2009. It will support a new programme managed by members of the Consortium, with a review taking place 12 months after the start of the Programme to audit the effectiveness of this approach.
Finally, we will evaluate the work of the Consortium after 12 months using the following metrics: Reach; breadth of engagement; depth of engagement; and social and economic impact.
We are inviting the Board of Channel 4 to consider how it can further contribute to driving Digital Participation, including consideration of whether Channel 4 should appoint a Digital Participation Champion from among its Senior Management Team.
Members of the “Consortium of Stakeholders” will include the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, BSkyB, the Broadband Stakeholders’ Group, the Mobile Broadband Group, UK Online Centres, the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, AOL, Bebo, MySpace, Google, Yahoo! and others. The Tate and the British Library have apparently “expressed an interest in joining”.
My take on this is that the devil is—as ever—in the detail. £12m isn’t a huge amount of money once consortia get into their stride: between meetings, workshops, reports and trials, it’s easily frittered away.
It’s difficult to judge at this stage, as it’s not clear how that £12m will itself be budgeted and ringfenced.
