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Can Mobile Broadband Solve the UK Digital Divide?

MJackson writes "Lord Carter's interim Digital Britain report recently proposed a new Universal Service Obligation (USO), which would effectively make it mandatory for every household in the UK to have access to a broadband service capable of 2Mbps by 2012. Since then there has been much talk about Mobile Broadband (3G, 4G) services being used to bridge the UK Digital Divide, but is that realistic? The technology has all sorts of problems from slow speeds and high latency to blocking VoIP, MSN Instant Messaging and aggressive image compression ... not to mention connection stability."

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  1. Re:USO sounds like a really great plan by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    people need to stop worrying about whether or not something is or is not "socialist"

    I live in a small rural cul de sac. The road is about 40cm lower than my garage, so my driveway is runs downhill a ways before reaching the street. Most of the homes around here have the same sort of thing.

    In the winter time, when it gets very icy, I've seen many of neighbors lose control of their cars and run off into the grass or in the worst case hit a tree near the sidewalk. In every single case, the drivers felt like they could successfully guide their vehicle down the ramp, but it always ends up the same. The first few feet seem okay, but soon afterward gravity kicks in and the tires lose their grip.

    That we should disregard labels and accept some socialist ideas is exactly what I would expect a communist or a wet-behind-the-ears college kid to say. It reminds of my driveway in the winter. It's like an icy ramp. Once you start out on the path, there's no turning back until you lose all control and crash into your neighbor's fence and tear up his tulip bed.