Network management Toolkit

Story: Broadband divide getting wider

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The primary obstacle to universal domestic broadband is that, although the facility is thoeretically available to all cable users, every residence that has a bt connection is not equipped at the exchange for the service. The primary task is to ensure that, within practical reason, every domestic residence is connected to a broadband availablility.
The secondary obstacle is COST!!! and then more COST!!!
It costs a potential broadband user to have it's line enabled, then it costs again to be connected, then it costs again for usage. And to change from one unsatisfactory ISP to another ISP costs yet again and can, in some instances, mean up to 2 weeks without the service.
There are many who just cannot afford the initial payments to set up a broadband connection and many more who are strapped for ISP charges.
I feel that cable companies should be made, as is BT, to open their broadband network to other ISPs. I feel that all communications providers of line should be required to equip all domestic connections with broadband facilities.
Service providers should be required to submit their pricing schedules to Ofcom for approval and that there should be a ceiling price laid down and reveiwed regularly.
And all ISPs must be required to facilitate , at NO CHARGE, customers wishing to migrate to another and better ISP. Making a charge for this is a disincentive for customers to find the best.
In addition to the provision of broadband, the other problem is the provision of a basic computer. There are still many who do not have a computer at home. Meanwhile we have a number of organisations who collect old computers, refurbish them, and send them to developing countries. All very well but I feel that this effort should be directed to UK home users who don't have one, or school children who get little chance to use the one and only family PC.

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