"Today we are way beyond the view that broadband is a niche product, it is an enabling and transformational service and therefore we have to look at how we can universalise it," he said. "We have to ensure that fairness and access for all is more than a soundbite in a manifesto."
As well as getting the technology into every part of the UK, he said the government must improve the population's media and digital literacy so the 40% who could get broadband, but choose not to, will be able to sign up.
Lord Carter today, getting us ready for his "Digital Britain" report, published soon. Just a thought but isn't literacy:
...the ability to read and write, or the ability to use language to read, write, listen, and speak. In modern contexts, the word refers to reading and writing at a level adequate for communication, or at a level that lets one understand and communicate ideas in a literate society, so as to take part in that society.
So will the "improvement" of digital literacy involve more than getting 40% of people to sign up for broadband; will it perhaps also be about the ideas that are promulgated digitally: the ability to question - then read, write, listen and speak about - the information sea that is out there? Isn't digital literacy less about rebooting the server, and more about making trust choices in content? Just a thought.
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