Race Online’s Natasha Innocent made clear, too many of us still aren’t. I chaired a great discussion in Parliament last night on behalf of the Hansard Society, LGiU and Networked Neighbourhoods. ‘Who doesn’t have broadband’, I asked? Not a hand went up. Ask the same question in some of our deprived inner city neighbourhoods in Liverpool, Glasgow, Cardiff… well, anywhere really, and the response is going to be different. Four out of ten hands will go up. Ask who’s not online at all and a quarter of the hands will stay up. That’s not acceptable. The European Commission has set a target of 30Mpbs for everyone by 2020 (and 50% will have at least 100Mbps). That’s eight years away. And 40% of people in some of our urban centres have nothing. (I’m not even getting into the rural divide disgrace here). That’s a serious level of exclusion. And I’ve been writing for ten years that it’s caused by wider socioeconomic, educational and health disparities. But what Race Online is doing in Liverpool looks really inspiring. I’m impressed with their ‘give an hour’ campaign too. As Networked Neighbourhoods’ Hugh Flouch put it, Race Online creates opportunities for hyperlocal solutions. Thankfully they have moved away from the one-size fits-all flawed ‘digital inclusion’ message to one of pushing local champions, giving locals good reasons to be online. Online for a purpose, not for the sake of it. The digital inclusion message has become stale and little more than self-serving rhetoric for consultants. (If you take offence to that comment then it’s probably time to look at your business model again). It’s got to be about linking. Linking communities, councils and businesses to promote the benefits to individuals. The benefits of being online are clear to many of us but that doesn’t mean they’re obvious to everyone. It’s a cost benefit issue too. The latest Oxford Internet Survey shows us that cost is a diminishing barrier to access. But it’s still a problem for one third of those not online. (I’m wary of ‘not interested’ (consistently around 40%) as it masks a myriad of real reasons that pride and social desirability bias stop people honestly disclosing). To this end, it’s really great to see that there’s a big focus on working with social housing providers to find affordable solutions. There’s also a realisation that sometimes we’re our own worst enemy. Fibre to the home (FTTH) is great. We should push hard for it. It’s lovely. Very nice. Won’t happen. Not yet anyway. So let’s focus on first-mile solutions that will work now. And that means wireless in a lot of cases. ]]>