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Saturday 19 September 2009

What is broadband?

It is the technology that allows you to....

Please respond, what is broadband to you???

It is the tech that lets you....

share your photos
communicate with your family
play the games you want to
access public services eg e-health, e-education, etc. (Health, wealth and learning)
run your business

Or, it is some impoverished communications network that doesn't allow you to watch iplayer without spending more time watching a spinning wheel than a film

won't let you upload your photos to share with your friends/family in NZ in less time than it would take you to fly there and show them the photos personally

gives you no choice about the infrastructure you have access to - BT W/S resold as a retail product via TalkTalk, Orange, O2 etc.

pretends that the dongle lets you access 'broadband'

How far will you let this go? Are you willing to be continually misled? Will you let BT sell BET or FTTC to the Class of 2010 as a manifesto issue or will you finally ask for a service that does what it says on the tin?

Ask yourself:
Are we going to be allowed to compete in the knowledge economy?
Are you going to let scarcity rule instead of abundance?
Are you going to permit organisations to be funded to suit their "suits" instead of you?
Is it all about creating career civil servants or consultancy bodies?
Should we permit a private company to set the 'glass ceiling' for broadband in this country?

Or is it about making it possible for you to actually enjoy broadband? Understand what broadband can do for you, your family, your business, your life?

Do you think broadband matters? TO YOU. I think you will find it does.

Once again, this post will undoubtedly be nicked, plagiairised etc and resold as a white paper but the facts are that unless YOU stand up for broadband as a RIGHT, you won't get it.

Broadband is not a number, it's a service that works. It has to be big, fat and owned by you.

2 comments:

Cyberdoyle said...

This is about the only blog I can find where someone actually gets 'IT'. well done for writing it, and if someone pinches it then at least you have done some good! The truth will out eventually, and you can always say they read it here first. Not that it will put any bread on your table, but hey, kudos to you. Keep telling it like it is.

"First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win." M. Gandhi

we will get there. keep rockin
chris

Cyberdoyle said...

Broadband to me, is the utility that lets me do whatever I need to in order to run my business, talk via skype to my family all over the world, catch up with news on blogs and twitter et al, upload videos, back up files to other locations, transfer photos to albums for people to download, download software and antivirus updates, and in fact anything I like without having to wait for hours. Open office can take 47 hours to download on a dongle. I expect to pay for whatever I need. Just like I pay for how much electricity I use. That is what broadband means to me. It doesn't have a speed or a measure. It should be ubiquitous. The only way this can work is if it comes through fibre. A basic knowledge of physics proves it can't be delivered through a victorian copper phone network. 1st gen yes, if all we wanted to do is the odd email or twitter, but for access to all the other things the web has to offer we need next gen fibre to the home. Time for everyone to get out of the box, stop the silo thinking, and break up the copper cabal.