[Conet] Broadband and the Social Economy

[Horace Mitchell]

As no-one has responded yet with any concrete references, I'd venture to
suggest that as yet there are very few 'really operational' applications of
broadband in the public domain, ie outside corporations that use broadband
networks internally.

Recent data suggest that in no European country has broadband access reached
more than around 15% of homes, 25% of small firms. UK is around 6% of homes,
13% of small firms. That being the case an application provider (for example
a website owner) has to continue to cater for the 'slow connection' user and
resists putting in the susbtantial effort to develop and sustain high speed
applications that will only be valid for a small proportion of his audience
and risk annoying the rest of the audience!

So broadband applications are probably restricted to a limited range of
'point to point' ones. For example my MP is toying with the idea of a
broadband link from his constituency office to Westminster so that he can
offer face-to-face advice at times when he cannot be available in the
constituency. But for the time being the constituent will have to come to
the constituency office, to use both the broaband connection there and the
webcam.

However if more than a very few MPs were to take this up and constituents
were to use it actively, Parliament would have to dramatically beef up its
own external bandwidth. The same also of course holds true for any
application provider. If you have a hundred concurrent users accessing your
website on 56k links and they all upgrade to 512k download speed, you will
need to increase your own effective bandwidth tenfold. That aspect of
broadband is seldom mentioned.

Sorry this is not more helpful in identifying 'good practice' as opposed to
issues". One could suggest many possibilities for 'broadband and the social
economy' but for the moment point to point ones are probably the main thing
to focus on. Probably worth checking what projects the EC research
programmes have surfaced.

Best wishes to all,

Horace Mitchell