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Fast Lane: Fast Track ?
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Government should introduce subsidisies enabling more public sector professionals to bring broadband technology into their own homes, says a new report from one of the UK's leading thinktanks.
The report predicts such a move could "make home working, an essential part of the public professional's workload, more efficient".
It suggests a two-year scheme, offering selected public servants (starting with doctors and teachers) a ?15-a-month government-funded broadband@home voucher:
- "... linked to special membership schemes with large broadband providers who would provide a discounted, bulk buy deal to public professionals that would make the service effectively free at point of use.
- "To make the scheme really popular and easy to understand, broadband providers could also offer a PC-rental contract and a software-based 'applications platform' where appropriate. This could be a package of services including word processing, database or budget analysis that would help the professional use the service more efficiently."
The overall report - Broadening horizons: why broadband matters - from the Centre for Reform, asks the question 'Can Britain afford to delay its transformation into a 24/7 networked society??.
The report's author, technology journalist and TV producer David Stevenson, sets out a thought-provoking series of recommendations: ?Policy should be about encouraging innovation through judicious experimentation," he says. "Investment in our national technology infrastructure is patchy and uncoordinated ? and crucially is lagging behind our main competitors.?
Stevenson argues forcefully for another approach, putting forward targets and recommendations illustrating how broadband technology would benefit our education system and other public services, as well as boosting national productivity and global economic competitiveness, especially amongst SMEs. He shows what must be done to ensure that the UK is in the vanguard of a networked society.
Among the other key proposals are:
? The creation of a National Technology Mentor to switch us onto the benefits of modern technology.
? A new style Universal Service Obligation, more widely defined and to be introduced for broadband within the next three years.
? The establishment of Broadband Development Zones.
? Specific programmes for encouraging more schools and other public services to move up to the next stage of broadband deployment.
? Push harder for next generation wireless and fibre-based broadband networks via judicious public sector investment.
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