Community broadband

November 25th, 2008

By: Piya Malik

The internet is to today’s information revolution what coal was to the industrial revolution. It is central to our economy as well as having the same capacity for improving life chances and increasing prosperity.

Broadband is one small yet integral part of this technological advance. By speeding up communication, it facilitates the transfer of knowledge across physical boundaries.

However, many still remain excluded from the full opportunities that broadband can provide. In particular, rural and remote geographical regions deemed not profitable enough, often find themselves ignored by private sector service providers. This leaves many communities cut off, isolated and at a disadvantage, simply because they fall on the wrong side of the digital divide.

The national Community Broadband Network has helped found innovative community broadband projects in over 550 towns and villages around the UK . Democratically run as community based, not-for-profit enterprises, they focus on serving the whole community. Excess income generated is re-invested in system upgrades and lower subscriber rates.

What more can the Co-operative Party do to combat the digital divide? Are there polices that we can implement to further the development of community broadband projects in rural areas?

So, what are your thoughts: COMMENT ON THIS POST

EMAIL THIS POST TO A FRIEND FACEBOOK THIS POST

Comments on Community broadband

Cllr Jonathan Bishop LLM says:

December 1st, 2008 at 9:11 pm

The Co-operative Party should see social enterprises and other co-operatives rather than government alone as the basis for tackling the digital divide. While the Government can pass laws on equality of opportunity, it is the co-operatives that can provide the supply-side solutions to reducing information poverty through education programmes as ‘my’ social enterprise is doing, increasing take-up of broadband where people are socially excluded, and providing digital services such as broadband as you described above to unprofitable communities. With a Co-operative Party working with all governments, our values and vision can be realised through enterprise and hard work.

theningoppips says:

July 22nd, 2009 at 8:28 am

Can you recommend a good disco?
—————————————
signature: order zoloft seg6se98i

offittyvave says:

November 2nd, 2009 at 2:41 am

Other variant is possible also

melissab says:

January 14th, 2010 at 1:50 pm

Just wanted to nip in after joining and say hello to all the folks on the forum . Look forward to following the conversations here!

http://www.seniorpsychiatry.com

Cialis says:

March 11th, 2010 at 7:55 am

RS5lQf Excellent article, I will take note. Many thanks for the story!

Herkimus says:

March 15th, 2010 at 11:32 am

Just wanted to sign in after registering and give a quick hi to all the folks on the board. Look forward to following the topics here!

http://alzheimersisnotwaiting.com/

Adobe says:

March 16th, 2010 at 6:58 pm

Very great report, very clear, deep analyze and easy to understand.
Thank for your share.

OEMSoftware says:

March 19th, 2010 at 1:18 pm

Thank you for this information. You have done a great job. So many figures, everything is so exactly. Now we can see all demografic picture of the alection.Thank you for highlighting this. Keep up your work.

OEMSoft says:

March 21st, 2010 at 12:31 pm

Really informative post. Thanks for sharing

undzie says:

March 22nd, 2010 at 5:05 pm

i realy want to make animated vids. and i heard you can download it for free on zdsoft.com. but lately, i had to reformat my laptop cuz of viruses. btw, if anyone still uses mangafox.com, i recommend you not. thats where i got the virus and also from anilinkz.com. but anyways, nowadays i need to be very careful. so if anyone had experienced having viruses from zdsoft.com, pleas let me know.!

[url=http://improve-concentration.info]improve concentration[/url]

Krosnbrk says:

April 9th, 2010 at 6:25 am

satellite tv for pc

_________________
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgJrK42dTSg]satellite tv for pc[/url]

mastobl says:

April 9th, 2010 at 5:06 pm

So i had this virus, Security Tool, so i removed it manually by watching a video on youtube. then when i removed it, the next time i logged onto my computer it said Windows could not find Logon.exe. I’ve tried System Restore (I have an XP by the way) and I don’t know what to do next. Do i need to pay for someone to fix it!?