By Jo Best, 21 November 2006 12:35
NEWS
O2 CEO Peter Erskine has called for the public sector to be brought up to date with mobile communications.
Speaking today at the Financial Times world communications conference, Erskine said: "[The public sector] is one sector that is still in the dark ages with mobile communications."
The mobile boss, however, put the blame at the feet of the industry rather than the public sector itself.
"This isn't a criticism of government, it's a challenge to everyone in the industry to show what mobile can do for government," he said. "Of course things are happening in the public sector, but think what added benefits they could be enjoying."
Certain services are underused in the sector, Erskine added, and singled out the health service as needing a shot in the arm from text messaging.
"Why is it not used in the health service to make or confirm appointments?" he asked.
The O2 boss also suggested that 'intelligent parking' could be one area where the public sector should begin to adopt mobile technology.
O2 has a number of public-sector activities on the go, notably through Airwave, its digital radio subsidiary. It also has worked with West Yorkshire Police to get them using BlackBerry devices to access data.
"There are a lot of individual uses of the digital age but we haven't helped them join them up yet," he noted.
Comments
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1. Rob
I'm not really that qualified to comment, well not as qualified as a CEO of a mobile comms business who's on the tout for more profit.
But prehaps the one reason the public sector hasn't embraced mobile is that small thing to do with cost, oh wait we're talking about the public sector so that big thing called cost. Unless I have fallen asleep and the public sector is suddenly awash with cash where would the money come from, and no you can't siphon money from the ID Card project to pay for it, taking money from one failed IT project to start another one that will no doubt go overbudget and miss it's deadline is not a documented government procedure.
And you say he's the CEO of O2! No wonder I have just ditched them in favour of T-Mobile.
2. Richard
"Intelligent parking"?
How about a public service which phones your mobile and asks (politely) that you move your car:
Rather than an oppressive service which imposes swinging penalties as a "stealth" tax?
3. Chris Goodman
The public service IT personnel are generally second or third class, noy being of the quality to obtain and hold commercial IT appointments.
So we get second class IT service where success is not necessary to retain a job.
4. Ray Winter
Of course O2 will recommend their SMS service, it costs users the equivalent of £14K per minute, compared to a voice call.
The NHS should switche to using WiFi Handsets with it's FREE IM service and free VoIP calling between ALL users. They will save a fortune and have better comms.
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