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UK To Offer PCs For £98, Subsidized Internet Connections
Sam writes "The UK government wants to offer low-cost computers as part of a 12-month trial during Race Online 2012. The scheme, which aims to reach out to the 9.2 million adults that are not yet online, 4 million of whom are considered socially and economically disadvantaged, aims to 'make the UK the first nation in the world where everyone can use the web.' Prices will start at £98 ($156.01) for a refurbished PC, with subsidized Internet connections available for as little as £9 ($14.33) a month or £18 ($28.65) for three months. The cheap computers will run open-source software (think Linux) and will include a flat-screen monitor, keyboard, mouse, dedicated telephone helpline, delivery, and even a warranty. The cheap Internet packages will use a mobile dongle to help people access the web."
I fear the "open source software" will be very quickly replaced with "windows", just like what happened with the OLPC.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
I think this is a great move. Kudos!
I live in the East End of London and am already involved in this kind of approach, but on a small scale and informally. So I think it's a a pretty good approach to supply of the basics and a better way than just stripping down perfectly viable PCs.
But, the big but, is training and support. Here Linux [we're mainly Ubuntu and variants] is slightly better because it doesn't get trashed by viruses immediately and file permissions etc. make things easier to lock down. However, I've spent 7 years on/off training people and the web, email, looking for stuff, deciding whether to trust sites etc etc. is NOT intuitive and searching, especially, is a hard subject.
So, without training, many of these PC will be underused and languish, as so many provided under various schemes do now. We prefer drop-ins currently, they're more sociable and mean you can train/help several people at once and they can provide peer support and discovery. Also, the connections can be consolidated and needn't go through mobile networks.
Just my 2p [that's a pence, non-UK folk] on this.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
It's not too bad, really, though I think you might be able to do better with some careful shopping on ebay and using public wifi. The big difference is that you'd be getting support from these guys, rather than depending on a computer geek friend. That's important to a lot of people.
Welcome to the UK. Our £/Mbps/month has always sucked.
"make the UK the first nation in the world where everyone can use the web". Right.
Most scandinavian countries probably reached this goal at least 5 years ago. The last person I knew who didn't have a computer (or internet connection) was my great-great grandmother, who died in 1997. My grandmother got her computer (winpc) and some kind of Windows 95 certification (that included IE) around 1996... And younger people are not less technical.
Sure, you can probably find some hermit out in the forests of northern Sweden who don't have any internet connection (or electricity), but I don't think that really counts.
In other words, great initiative, but there's no need to make up silly claims like that.
The issue here is that not everyone in the UK wants to get online.
Yes, you can get upto 8mbps in the UK for £5 on a decent ISP
And a big fat [citation needed] there. If you are using ADSL, then you have a £10.50 line rental to BT, plus whatever your ISP charges. If you have a LLU exchange, then you might be able to pay £6-7 line rental to some other company. If you go with cable, the cheapest package is £20/month.
With ADSL, that's assuming you are in an urban area. My mother lives in North Devon and can only get a little over 1Mb/s from her 'up to 8Mb/s' ADSL because she's so far from the exchange. This is an area which has a lot of people in the demographic targeted by this program (few jobs, very high property prices because people from London keep buying second homes in the area, underfunded local council). Move a little bit further away from the city and you get no ADSL at all, but you can still see UMTS signals.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Teaching them how to use a computer isnt "leading" the poor?
Your right, we need some tough love like, not feeding them, or allowing them to have heat in the winter!!
Thin that herd out, amiright? /sarc
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
free computers
Wow, that's a step beyond normal Slashdot behaviour. Most of us don't read the article. Some don't read the summary. But you didn't even read the headline!
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Try reading TFA. They claim that being online can save an average of over £500 per year. This includes online shopping, paying utility bills online, and so on. A person on minimum wage takes home about £10K/year. Being online saves them about 5% of their income, which works out as a massive increase in their disposable income. If people don't want to do this, that's fine and no one is forcing them to.
You missed that this is about the UK. If you are on minimum wage, you won't qualify for any of these things that are for the "poor and needy". You have to be unemployed. In the UK, moving from unemployment to minimum wage means you lose your benefit income, which is tax free, and get an income from employment which can be less, and you have to pay tax on it. So you have less money, and then you will notice that your kids will have to pay for a school trip, while your neighbour who was clever enough not to get a job will have his kids going for free. You will also not get one of these free computers, while your unemployed neighbour will.
It's a bit dishonest to try and factor in BT's line rental, because so few people, even the poorest in society don't have an existing line of some sort
Absolutely untrue. In my age group, almost no one has a landline because mobiles are much cheaper. Even relatively heavy users spend about £10 on prepay topups, while I pay about £2. Having a landline does not make economic sense. For poorer people, it's even more of a problem because they have to pay a large fee (£50 or so) to be connected in the first place. If they're moving house between different low-cost rented accommodation frequently, they don't bother with a landline. A mobile phone can be had very cheaply and, if you mainly need it for incoming calls (i.e. people who might offer you a job) costs next to nothing to operate.
this seems more targetted at the folks who simply aren't interested in the internet
No, it's targeted at people who can't afford the Internet. Read their documentation - they claim that being online saves an average of £537/year and that this is most important for people with a very low income, who typically can't afford the up-front capital cost of getting online. They are people who are often moving quite often to look for work, so can't afford any kind of Internet access that has an installation fee or requires a long contract in the same dwelling.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
A lot of that is incorrect. You do lose certain benefits by entering employment (housing benefit and council tax benefit being the most significant two) but those on minimum wage will receive working tax credit and possibly child tax credit too.
I don't know how this varies around the country, but the school my children attend (which is in a deprived area) subsidise the school trips and eligibility for school dinners (and many other subsidies) relies not on employment status, but whether you receive a higher rate of tax credits.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
how about a different approach, and you raise the minimum wage, so that those unemployed don't have to hunger but working gets more attractive? Same result, except that nobody dies.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
The school trips part of your argument (at least) is bogus. At state schools in Britain, nobody is obliged to pay for school trips (see http://www.education.gov.uk/popularquestions/childrenandfamilies/parenting/a005627/i-have-received-a-letter-from-my-childs-school-asking-for-contributions-towards-a-school-trip-do-i-have-to-pay) and merely being unemployed isn't going to stop you getting the begging letter.