Martha Lane Fox Thinks No Proper UK Citizen Can Reject Broadband

The new digital inclusion champion of the United Kingdom, Martha Lane Fox has opined that one cannot be a proper UK citizen in the future society, if the person refuses to go online. Fox said this while talking to BBC Radio 4.

Fox’s perspective holds significance as the number of refuseniks in the country amount to around a serious looking seventeen million. Take this number as the number of households without an internet connection as well.

The broadband think-tank of the United Kingdom desperately needs to carry out a deep introspection; to know where things went wrong despite an inspiring promise made by former communications minister Lord Carter, or the declaration made by Prime Minister Gordon Brown himself that internet was more significant than anything in the country.

Many factors can be identified for the reluctance on the part of such a huge number of people to take to the most advanced facet of communication – the internet. A crucial factor of the lot if not the most crucial one, is the lack of the so called broadband literacy. Other factors that follow are; the conservative mindset of certain people, a minority being apprehensive about the idea of digitalization, the financial aspect, etc.

The remedy according to Fox is coercion although, Chuck Doherty the broadband expert of UK Broadband Suppliers, thinks otherwise. According to him, a collective approach was all that was required, all the more for one reason that Virgin Media had already taken the initiative with gusto, in the form of broadband schools. Doherty thinks if the ISPs along with the government as well as other relevant media entities join hands to promote the concept, it would only be a matter of months perhaps.

Chuck Doherty is one person in the country that strongly advocates the need for a mass movement in the broadband sector that would help in the formation of the kind of consensus amongst the relevant entities in the sector. According to him, this would solve many a problem teasing the sector currently. He has also gone to the extent of terming the concept of consensus – the ‘Broadband Fraternity’.

Doherty summed up that any amount of coercion that highlights the master plan of Fox would only help to rub salt on the already inflicted injury, which is the public-scorn, called forth by the annual broadband levy proposal.