Wiring Arcadia
The private sector is trying to bridge the “digital divide”
Sep 30th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
Struggling to order the internet shopping
GIVEN its reputation for surfing and the slow life, Cornwall has a surprisingly solid technological pedigree. It is where the transatlantic cables that carry much of Britain’s telephone and internet traffic land. Its Goonhilly satellite station is among the world’s biggest. And on September 30th, its council confirmed that, thanks to fibre-optic cables costing £132m (£78.5m from BT, the formerly state-run telephone monopoly, plus £53.5m in aid from the European Union), its residents will soon enjoy some of the fastest internet access in the country. Alas, other country-dwellers are less well-connected.
Despite Britain being the fifth-biggest broadband market in the OECD, a club of rich nations, a rump of about 11% of British homes remain too remote to receive the 2 megabit-per-second internet access the government thinks should be the minimum. The Euro-millions that will wire up Cornwall are available only because Cornwall is, by British standards, very poor.
Section 2 - the digital divide
Rural broadband: Wiring Arcadia | The Economist
http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_id=17151241&subjectID=348963&fsrc=nwl
