Don't paper over cracks in the digital nation

Looking at the headline in The Guardian this week and you'd be forgiven for thinking something momentous has happened to Broadband Britain today: 'Fears of digital divide groundless as online access soars in rural areas', it proclaims.

The same upbeat tone runs through the Ofcom report - the source of the story (covered here by silicon.com). "When broadband was first introduced in the UK in 2000, households in urban areas were the first to take the service, leading to concerns that a digital divide was emerging between country and built-up areas," it states.

The list from A to Z

Click on the links below to find out more...

A is for ADSL
B is for BT
C is for Cable & Wireless
D is for Dial-up
E is for Education
F is for Fibre
G is for Goonhilly
H is for HSDPA
I is for In-flight
J is for Janet
K is for Kingston
L is for Landlines
M is for Murdoch
N is for Next generation
O is for Ofcom
P is for Power lines
Q is for Quad-play
R is for Remote working
S is for Satellite phones
T is for Trains
U is for Unbundling
V is for VoIP
W is for WiMax
X is for Xbox
Y is for YouTube
Z is for Zombies

"But the rapid rollout of broadband services across the country has meant that most parts of the UK now have access to this service and today's report marks the end of the so-called divide."

So is the digital divide really over? Has the era of internet access for all finally arrived? Simply put: no.

Ofcom's take on the digital divide being a 'town vs country' affair glosses over the real cracks in the digital nation - which are based on factors such as income, ethnicity and education. In other words this is about society, not mere geography.

But geography may well have something to tell us about the UK's digital divide.

Only this week, silicon.com reported on a plan by a council in an urban area of the West Midlands to offer some of its housing tenants free internet access - in an effort to "improve their life chances".

Solihull Metropolitan Council's community housing head of IT, Chris Deery, told silicon.com: "We are aware of the disadvantages suffered by the residents in these blocks and this is part of the council's attempt to improve their life chances."

In the UK, poverty is predominantly an urban issue - so looked at from that perspective the Ofcom state-of-the-broadband-nation report suggests high speed internet access might actually be exacerbating the digital divide - as relatively well-off country dwellers sign up for fat pipes, while those on low incomes in deprived inner-city areas are left relying on innovative council projects to get broadband's benefits.

Ofcom's own statistics show how important income is to getting online - as silicon.com reported last month. Well over half of UK households in the lowest earning bracket (of less than £11,500 per year) are without internet access, yet just 10 per cent of homes with incomes more than £30k go without the web.

Moreover, ethnic minorities are more likely to be disengaged from the online world - close to half (42 per cent) of minority ethnic group households do not have internet access, compared to a national average of 35 per cent of homes.

And with many government and financial services increasingly being delivered online it's serious stuff people are being excluded from - not just throwing sheep at friends on Facebook or watching videos of Mentos and exploding Coke bottles on YouTube.

So let's not get ahead of ourselves.

While there are undoubtedly rural areas in the UK where broadband access is not readily available - often because there are too few people for telcos to get the kind of return on infrastructure investment they crave - there is a bigger issue at the heart of the digital divide.

Simply put the poorest members of society can't afford broadband because it is still a luxury. And changing that means tackling poverty itself.