Better late than never dept: BT has just published a 31-page report on the Digital Divide. Looks interesting, but unfortunately it's in PDF form. The blurb here says:
Launching today [Tuesday] at the BT Tower in London, the report - conducted by The Future Foundation - predicts that while the number of digitally excluded people will fall from 27 million to 23 million by 2025, the people excluded risk losing access to fundamental services like medical information and education.
Currently one in two adults (51 per cent) are disadvantaged by not being online and the report warns that the gap between the "have nets" and "have nots" will widen if the government, commercial organisations and designers of new technology fail to engage people who have so far rejected the digital age.
The BBC has a report here, oir see RDDA News.
Comment: I'm frankly amazed that anybody thinks that 40% of the UK's population will still be without internet access at home in 2025, given that 49% have it already.
The UK Government figures from here show home internet access rising from 9% (Oct-Dec 98) to 34% (2000) to 49% (2003), so growth is slowing, but perhaps not that dramatically. In any case, I'd expect at least 80% of home users to have Internet access before 2025 -- via their mobile phones.
