I know that I’ve spoken a number of times, here on this blog as well a in comments on other blogs, about the deplorable state of the internet infrastructure in a large percentage of the world – Particularly the UK.

A Post of Politics

In a proposed initiative announced earlier this week; British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to unveil plans to allow low-income families in the UK to connect to the internet. The plan is to accomplish this by sending such families a voucher worth up to £700, (About $1350) depending upon the families’ means as assessed under the strange, outdated, and in places unfairly applied, British Law. These vouchers can be used to pay for broadband charges, software, technical support, or even computers themselves. This scheme is intended to be run over the next three years; and is primarily intended to assist poorer children and their parents to keep up with the recent use of computers in classrooms in UK schools which is seeing school reports, homework, and study materials being posted online at an ever-increasing rate.

“To ensure we are prepared for the times to come, the Government will fund one million more households to get online, enabling parents to link with the teachers at their children’s school and helping young people with their homework and coursework.” According to Brown.

It is also intended that the initiative will keep teachers and parents in constant touch with one another; rather than just by means of the three school reports per-year as under the old system.

Knowing the nature of rip-off Britain as I do; I foresee a lot of exploitation by British businesses in charging unacceptable prices for these services to the unwary possibly computer-illiterate bearers of these vouchers. I see larger companies capitalising upon this opportunity by offering their old stock in exchange for vouchers: Using this as a means to clear yesterday’s technology without any loss of revenue on the original marked-up price. I foresee amateur computer “technicians” taking advantage of this scenario; taking people’s computers to a professional repair shop, adding their own profit and charging the customer a fortune, then claiming vouchers as payment.

I foresee more of the following too:-

Part One (Above)                                       

       Part Two (Above)                                                      

This kind of behaviour by supposed “professionals” is utterly diabolical, completely unethical, and also totally illegal: Nevertheless it does happen – That was a real Channel 4 TV programme about a real con-artist operating in the UK some time ago. I have plans to do something towards preventing the British public from being ripped off; although unfortunately I currently have neither the resources not the ability to provide any sort of similar service to Mike Quigley (Above); despite the fact that my service would be totally ethical and not rip the public off as this cowboy did.

- And Queue Advertising…

As many of my readers may be aware; I build computers: I operate under the name of “Kustom Komputa” and have been trading as such in a rather limited capacity since early summer 2007; building computers for associates, friends, neighbours, and acquaintances mainly. I have several years experience in computers and also have qualifications in both analogue and digital electronics. I once again state that unfortunately I don’t offer a technical support service or a visiting computer repair service, other than a similar support service under the terms of the Kustom Komputa warranty to my customers where the customer has their faulty computer picked up by courier and returned to me for repair should any hardware component malfunction during the warranty period. I also only deliver to addresses in the UK currently.

Please do enquire with Kustom Komputa about a new PC if you find yourself on this scheme. I build each individual computer for the benefit of the customer that will own it. I will build tower-only or I will supply peripherals and/or operating system as part of the package. The website is overdue for an update; but please don’t let that put you off.

Alternatively; if you’re feeling adventurous, you might try this:

Enough advertising for the time being: Let’s get back to the issue of this proposed Government incentive. Despite being well-intentioned this is once again too little and too late; something that we in the UK have come to expect from any government in power at any time:

The Real Politics Part

Despite this bringing the possibility of allowing some of the less-well-off families in Britain access to the internet it neither answers the matter of limited broadband access nor does it answer the matter of substandard infrastructure throughout the UK: It is still the case that in many rural areas of the UK those with internet access have to rely on a dial-up service through their telephone lines at 56k on an old-fashioned dial-up modem simply because there is no alternative other than the expensive satellite broadband services. The reason for this is because the companies that deliver services such as cable have in their own immediate interests only wired up the urban and suburban areas to benefit from their services. BT themselves, despite being able to deliver broadband services of up to 8mbps to customers virtually on the doorstep of their exchanges, are nevertheless unable to offer decent connection speeds to anybody living more than about a mile-and-a-half or more from the exchanges. This means that over 40% of the population of the UK are still unable to benefit from speeds above 2mbps; with many unable to access anything faster than 56k dialup due to location and/or financial reasons.

The fact is that were this 1998 this would be acceptable; although barely so. In reality this is 2008 and the situation is totally unacceptable. It has been brought about by the failure of the current Government to address the matter of proper investment in technology and the infrastructure of the World Wide Web in the UK. At the risk of sounding like a politician; although hopefully without the echo-chamber effect of the hollow words of a politician; I feel that it is time for the British people to get up out of their comfort zone and lobby Parliament to gain and institute the necessary investment.

The British as a nation have become complacent and have lost all enthusiasm for keeping Britain great; in fact it appears that they’ve given up – Because the politicians that are supposed to be setting an example have also given up leading and have set about doing as little as possible for as much money as possible.

This has set the tone for rip-off Britain – because our politicians are leading by example; ripping off Britain in the first place.

The latest round of pay-rises in the House of Commons would themselves have partially paid for a renewed internet infrastructure rather than putting wealth into the pockets of the “elite” who are supposed to be running this country on our behalf; not on theirs.

Unless further investment occurs in this area soon; the UK could end up as a third-world nation! Is that what you want? Then get off your arse and do something about it: The politicians aren’t going to do it for you; all they care about is how fat their wallet or purse is: they make token gestures but fail to address the real issues. Nothing has ever been achieved better than by people power: Politician-power is artificial synthetic crapola that fails and fails again; yet tells you that it’s working.

A new Government would be a change; but we’ve surely learned over the last century that neither Labour nor Conservative are any good. How many times do they have to fail over and over again before someone gets this point? I’m not saying that any party has all the answers; but surely it’s a fallacy to keep doing the same old thing in the same old way and expect different results? – I thought that was the definition of insanity rather than the definition of politics! perhaps the two have become identical? What’s your take on it?