By Natasha Lomas, 23 May 2008 10:40
COMMENT
Looking at the headline in The Guardian this week and you'd be forgiven for thinking something momentous has happened to Broadband Britain today: 'Fears of digital divide groundless as online access soars in rural areas', it proclaims.
The same upbeat tone runs through the Ofcom report - the source of the story (covered here by silicon.com). "When broadband was first introduced in the UK in 2000, households in urban areas were the first to take the service, leading to concerns that a digital divide was emerging between country and built-up areas," it states.
The list from A to Z
Click on the links below to find out more...
A is for ADSL
B is for BT
C is for Cable & Wireless
D is for Dial-up
E is for Education
F is for Fibre
G is for Goonhilly
H is for HSDPA
I is for In-flight
J is for Janet
K is for Kingston
L is for Landlines
M is for Murdoch
N is for Next generation
O is for Ofcom
P is for Power lines
Q is for Quad-play
R is for Remote working
S is for Satellite phones
T is for Trains
U is for Unbundling
V is for VoIP
W is for WiMax
X is for Xbox
Y is for YouTube
Z is for Zombies
"But the rapid rollout of broadband services across the country has meant that most parts of the UK now have access to this service and today's report marks the end of the so-called divide."
So is the digital divide really over? Has the era of internet access for all finally arrived? Simply put: no.
Ofcom's take on the digital divide being a 'town vs country' affair glosses over the real cracks in the digital nation - which are based on factors such as income, ethnicity and education. In other words this is about society, not mere geography.
But geography may well have something to tell us about the UK's digital divide.
Only this week, silicon.com reported on a plan by a council in an urban area of the West Midlands to offer some of its housing tenants free internet access - in an effort to "improve their life chances".
Solihull Metropolitan Council's community housing head of IT, Chris Deery, told silicon.com: "We are aware of the disadvantages suffered by the residents in these blocks and this is part of the council's attempt to improve their life chances."
In the UK, poverty is predominantly an urban issue - so looked at from that perspective the Ofcom state-of-the-broadband-nation report suggests high speed internet access might actually be exacerbating the digital divide - as relatively well-off country dwellers sign up for fat pipes, while those on low incomes in deprived inner-city areas are left relying on innovative council projects to get broadband's benefits.
Ofcom's own statistics show how important income is to getting online - as silicon.com reported last month. Well over half of UK households in the lowest earning bracket (of less than £11,500 per year) are without internet access, yet just 10 per cent of homes with incomes more than £30k go without the web.
Moreover, ethnic minorities are more likely to be disengaged from the online world - close to half (42 per cent) of minority ethnic group households do not have internet access, compared to a national average of 35 per cent of homes.
And with many government and financial services increasingly being delivered online it's serious stuff people are being excluded from - not just throwing sheep at friends on Facebook or watching videos of Mentos and exploding Coke bottles on YouTube.
So let's not get ahead of ourselves.
While there are undoubtedly rural areas in the UK where broadband access is not readily available - often because there are too few people for telcos to get the kind of return on infrastructure investment they crave - there is a bigger issue at the heart of the digital divide.
Simply put the poorest members of society can't afford broadband because it is still a luxury. And changing that means tackling poverty itself.
Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. Dan Zamoyski
Interesting insight, Natasha, but is the lower uptake among lower income and ethnic groups merely due to cost of broadband, or simply the possibility that there is no computer in these households? Income may still of course be a primary issue, but not necessarily just due to the cost of broadband.
As a rural market-town dweller in Derbyshire, we are still waiting for the unbundling to take place at our exchange, so we can get a non-BT speed of more than 2.2meg. Sadly, the urban/rural divide certainly still does exist! And I'm sure, like you say, it is due to the greedy providers setting their desired ROI's at too high a level to satisfy rural employers and residents.
2. Alistair Thomas
Ofcom bleating on about poor people not being to afford broadband is all very well, but the poverty divide denies them access to much more funadamental things than this. How many of these people regularly use books and libraries? Broadband isn't going to fix poverty and solutions will only come through changes in our social attitudes supported by our education system. This is a bit like saying hungry people should eat cake.
As a rural user, I'm grateful to BT for pushing ADSL out to the country. They didn't get much help or incentive. For the record, I appreciate the acceptably slow speed I now get (about 1 - 1.5MBits/sec) which is a quantum leap over dial-up on a shared analogue line (an often overlooked feature of rural life).
That said, the next quantum leap happens after 2MBits where video services become achievable. I doubt software as a service is realistic below these rates either so this is a real divide. Define Broadband-A as above 2MBit and Broadband-B as below, run the numbers again and the divide will be clear for all to see.
Ofcom should focus on the 80% that can be achieved with 20% effort instead of grabbing for headlines like every other part of this tired and feckless government. Where are the tax/business incentives to push fat pipes out of the cities? Why has it taken so long to realise that cable could be run into existing holes and tunnels? Every hole that's dug or bit of infrastruture that's built / repaired with public money should have some cable laid into it. They could have a database of the loose bits and then encourage carriers to join the dots with some medium term revenues returning to the public purse to fund more expansion.
3. Charles Stirling
I wonder how much of the digital divide is more down to interest, time and knowledge than either cost or availability. An older second hand computer can be virtually free, it would be fully capable of broadband access along with the ability to run older applications that do nearly all the jobs that a new flashy computer will do (yes, I have an old 286, remember them, that does this). No it won't run all the latest games or fancy Windows stuff but it works. So, computer cost is a red herring.
I live near the centre of a reasonable size city, so have ADSL that approaches 2MB, not dissimilar to what some rural people complain of. I does the job, OK not the quickest. Broadband costs for limited low usage for a month could be kept below that two 6pts milk cartons, it would allow essential things to be done but not the fun things. It's a matter of priorities.
I suspect many in low income brackets simply don't see a benefit, others don't have the skills to use a computer let alone broadband. To justify the space and time for a computer it needs to be perceived as providing a benefit, of doing something you want to do. This is where I think the divide really exists. It's often job or work that first gives the need, familiarity shows new possibilities that might give a benefit. I wonder how many on the "wrong side" of the divide don't use computers at work so never have a feel for possible benefits. Others I find are simply afraid of the things.