BBC HARDtalk: Martha Lane Fox on digital Britain

[vishalrao]

OMG awesome episode of BBC HARDtalk today! bbc.co.uk/hardtalk

See BBC NEWS | Programmes | HARDtalk | 'Brutal numbers' point to digital disadvantage

Martha Lane Fox was one of the first entrepreneurs of the dotcom boom. While still in her 20s she founded what is now Europe's largest travel and leisure website, lastminute.com: hotels, holidays, flights, travel and entertainment at the last minute..

Now she is the British government's digital inclusion champion, trying to persuade the millions of people without internet access to get online.

Jonathan Charles asked her why she believes those people are disadvantaged.

Watch the full interview with Martha Lane Fox on HARDtalk on Tuesday 13 October 2009.

BBC News Channel: 0430, 2330 BST

BBC World: 0330, 0830, 1430, 2030, 2230 GMT.

 

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From that small clip she says you can say 560 quid if you shop online for holiday (ie airline) tickets, to which the sharp host points out that poor families dont get to go on vacation.

Then she talks about a smaller figure of 270 pounds to which the host says thats how much you pay for a yearly broadband subscription anyway

Thats two slam dunks from the host against martha lane fox in 1:30 minutes

 

[vishalrao]

there were plenty, a good debate, the hardtalk hosts are always prepared

one of the points she made was that some govt dept. entirely interacted with citizens via paper or face to face meetings, and if they were to get an online presence so that just one person (was it per day or week or what i dont recall) used online service the govt dept would save 900 million pounds (again i hope im not mixing up the number) and this was not her number it was a third party figure.

since govt can have such savings they can subsidise or provide free basic connectivity to the poor/rural whilst the more affluent could pay premiums for higher speeds/services...

 

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Yes thats an argument for the govt. to save money but what about the general public ?

The reason they interact via paper or face-to-face is that no tech is reqd from the end user

And as a govt. they can't try to encourage ppl to use online methods like private companies can. They can't say you can ONLY interact with us in this manner henceforth cos we'd like to save some cash.

That 1:30 clip was a bit depressing for me, if its so easy to knock the use of broadband in the UK, how the hell are we going to get it to make a difference here

Whats the avg cost of yearly broadband here ?...hmm say Rs.6000-12000 (possibly higher)

First you have to make that money back somehow to break even.

THEN you need to make more back for it to be worth it. This is why its difficult for broadband to pick up here.

In the UK that break even is 270 quid, i bet a lot of ppl would think its not worth it at that price.

The net for all its worth still lacks that killer app that would make it as ubiquitous as the phone. We are today, at best a semi-online society in large part.

 

[vishalrao]

yup, they can't say "you can do this and that ONLY via the web".

sure, for poorer countries like india, the expense is prohibitive. its already a very hard problem for the UK, so we're going to be way behind if anything.

did you catch whether that 270 quid number INCLUDES the cost of a computer? she was repeatedly mentioning basic access and a basic computer to go together for any plans to work...

 

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270 was just yearly cost for internet AFAICT. So spending 270 to save 270 is no better than not spending the 270 in the first place

Now thats the case with the UK, you have even fewer chances to make those savings in India so it makes widespread adoption of internet by the masses that much harder. Which means there is not that much demand and therefore broadband prices will not come down much in the long run