TODAY - the kids will tell you how dire current UK broadband is today

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If you can play this very, very simple game without it sputtering and halting you into submission and a score below 10k, your broadband is bog standard by world standards.

If you want to know if your connection is of equivalent standard to other countries, log into any MMPORG game or a live Second Life sesh and see how far you get.... or watch Newsround this evening and have it explained by 11-12 year olds.

This blog post can be read at http://5tth.blogspot.com

If you can't do either - like me - you are one of the QUITE-VERY digitally excluded. Maybe what we need is a digitally excluded scale?

How digitally excluded are you?

Uber - shared lines (15 people on 5 phone lines, multiple DACS etc, not even meeting the USO for a basic telephone and 28k internet connection)
Extremely - dial up only
Very - connected to a digital exchange but even the engineers have given up. Often offered a solution that will cost £20-40,000+ - this is where nearly every single 'notspot' will find themselves.
Quite - Sold a product called "broadband" that, ahem, isn't even close and cannot be over the current incumbent tech.

If your connection cannot even cope with something like the games that are only marginally more advanced those that I played in Trent Poly in the early 70s, then how will it cope with telehealth, e-education, video on demand, video conferencing etc? As I watch my little 'cannon' jolt its way to the next lily pad and miss due to jitter, latency, contention etc, the whole scenario seems bordering on surreal for a country which claims/lies to be leading the digital revolution.

Send the PPCs on their election campaign to my doorstep NOW. Whilst I have multiple concerns about my deeply rural community and policies to solve rural issues, the PPC will need to answer questions about UK tech policies before ANYTHING ELSE.