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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."
Yes, it may be a little socialist in some respects, it really forces a good thing onto the people with very little downside except short term funding issues.
If you think that short term funding issues should take precedence over long term societal growth, then by all means reject this proposal. But it should be noted that that sort of short term thinking is what led to the collapse of the American auto industry and the subsequent begging for bailouts.
It is forward looking policies that brought Korea and Japan to the forefront of broadband technology. With every new home wired for fiber and existing lines being replaced at a rate of 3 miles per hour, these Asian countries have already made investments that Western countries should have been making 10 years ago when the DotCom boom was in full effect and money was plentiful.