Yesterday, Radio Lancashire devoted the day to rural broadband. (As well as ironing, oddly). Here are some sound clips from those who are daily affected by this country's (market) failure to connect its citizens and businesses and who are represented by the Final Third First campaign. And from Stephen Timms, who phoned in to be interviewed.
Rachel, who runs her own horse riding and trekking centre and cannot get online even to check e-mails. (I think that counts as digitally excluded, Martha!) 2m50s
Sam, David and Matt, who are teenagers, are trying to cope with the lack of a social life, unable to do homework or revision, be part of a band, conduct Uni research, and suffer disbelief from peers and teachers. Why? Because they don't have access to broadband or the Net. 3m48s
Ted and his wife, Mandy, cannot work and study from home. They also have teenagers, who cannot do their homework, access revision from school. Ted cannot work as the rest of the international company he works for do - from home. He points out that many other countries offer broadband accessibility, even on the beach, whilst the UK doesn't. "We need a centralised approach to the infrastructure. This to me is like electric, it's like water ....we provide that ourselves...we have a generator and a wind turbine. We're not frightened of taking it on, we have the will to be able to do it". 4m59s
Chris talks about the Final Third First campaign, the social impact on rural life (especially for teens) without broadband, Wray network, loans, bonds and funding, and removing red tape to enable the build of sustainable community fibre networks. 4m37s
Lindsey (half awake, thanks Chris!) tries to explain what being an Internet Marketer means without broadband and why I want to take my business out of the UK now after 15 years trying to get a decent connection. I would like to point out that this is no reflection on my ISP who have done their very best to work with the laws of physics and ancient/decrepit BT copper. 3m09s
Stephen Timms responds to questions after Sam, a teenager in Lancashire talks about his problems with school, homework and no broadband.
Your comments on the Minister's interview would be welcomed!!
1 comment:
It was great to be part of the interview process and see the reporter's reactions to meeting the people who have no utilities at all, and to hear how they dug pipes in up the hill to the spring, and got a generator to provide their electric, and they do all this only to find themselves cut off from the modern world by lack of broadband and no means to get it. The reporter then tried to phone to the next interview, and couldn't get a signal. It just proved to Radio Lancashire that what we have been saying for years is true. We have also had enquiries from councils since it went out, so it has done a lot of good. Thanks for blogging about it, every little helps the cause.
Chris Conder
Post a Comment