Britain is 25th in the global broadband league table according to a Cisco sponsored study performed by Oxford University’s Said Business School. This was one of the headlines that woke me up whilst listening to BBC Radio 4 this morning.
That in itself should be a spur for the UK to get its act together. For the BBC interview, however, Oxford University could have fielded someone a little more conversant in the issues. The study itself, seen online, looks to be purely factual but University don Alastair Nicholson seemed to to think that this lowly ranking was not a problem and that our broadband network was perfectly suited to our present needs.
Although this initially incensed me I’ve calmed down now. Alastair Nicholson, as an academic overseer of some MBA students, probably has little exposure to the dynamics of a high technology fuelled economy. He didn’t do the country a favour though by suggesting that the hype surrounding the Digital Britain debate was partly pride and not driven by the absolute need to have faster and more ubiquitous broadband.
He is just wrong. This is extremely short sighted. Build the motorway and the traffic will come. The act of building this information superhighway will create the jobs that will help to dig our way out of recession.
3 replies on “Britain is 25th in Oxford University Global Broadband League Table”
Trefor, take a chill pill!
We all know that the majority of them just do not get IT. That’s why it is so important that those who do get it JFDI and prove what we have been saying for the last decade. Then there will be no denying the need.
There is zero comprehension of ‘present need’ and certainly no vision of future need. After all, it isn’t these spokesmen who need it, or they would get it and be as incensed as the rest of us that we can’t do what we want to now, and have no idea when we might be able to in this country.
It took me longer to calm down than you did!
The ‘leaders’ as Lins said on previous comment simply don’t get IT.
I say, either Lead, Follow, or get the hell out of the way and let someone else JFDI.
It isn’t rocket science. Its just plain common sense. The digital economy is something this country can use to get us out of recession. We have lost our industries, the only thing we have left to export is our content, our innovation and our brains. If we don’t get the infrastructure needed to do this then our youngsters will just migrate to countries that do, and we will be left with a bunch of Leaders with nothing to lead. Or Bleeders with nothing to bleed.
FFS, when will they get IT?
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