Information Research Weblog

Apparently the day is coming when you will be able to take your laptop into a British public library and log on to the Internet through a wi-fi connection - this according to Stephen Timms the Minister for E-commerce. Amazing, isn't it, that a Minister can imagine that this is a novel development, when libraries in a number of countries already provide that possibility. UK governments since 1979 have been so far behind the curve in relation to braodband implementation that they are meeting it coming the other way. I often refer to Ian Mackintosh's 'Sunrise Europe', published in 1986, which set out a broadband strategy for the whole of Europe - had that been implemented, Europe would have had a broadband service similar to that of South Korea and e-commerce would certainly have been a bigger factor in the economy. But the politicians sat on their hands, business was not interested, and the European development money went into pointless projects that have wasted millions. Hey, ho, that's politics.