| Marking the
benches of Europe A couple of years back, the internet could do no wrong and the wired society was heralded as the brave new world of tomorrow. At their top meeting in Lisbon that year, EU leaders set their sights on creating "the most dynamic knowledge based economy in the world" by 2010. Latest signs are that things are not moving forward quite as quickly as anticipated. A recent "benchmarking" report (COM 2002-62) reveals some sharp contrasts between the various members of the European family and displays a much less confident tone in relation to the role that electronic transactions will play in our future. The claim is made that our recent lack of sufficient investment in information technology has cost us something approaching a half a percentage point of annual growth as compared with the US economy. It may be that European society will never be able to accept the same levels of internet penetration as the United States. This report covers all fifteen EU member states plus Norway and Iceland, with US figures included for comparison wherever possible. Whilst a small group of pioneer countries are seen to be well ahead of the pack and internationally up with the best, we still have a significant number of states that are lagging in almost all areas and some less-favoured groups within society who are missing out across the board. Internet penetration figures display a slowdown in take-up since the heady days of 2000. The UK is to be found in the second division of Europe, along with Finland, Austria and Ireland. In the lead are the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark, each more than matching the USA and now said to be reaching saturation with some sixty per cent of households connected. Further growth may be unable to outstrip the availability of personal computers and although there are other ways of going online (through TV sets and mobile devices, for example) these have been slow to develop, despite continued speculation about how they may yet one day begin to grow rapidly. From exclusion to e-inclusion The EU report points to significant differences both between and within member states. For example, 40 per cent of EU women use the Internet, in comparison to 56 per cent of men. As you might expect, "internet usage is particularly high amongst young people, those with higher education and those who live in a city". However, "socially disadvantaged people are still lagging behind in computer access and training." Clearly there is a need to get many marginalised groups on board and promoting "e-inclusion" must therefore become a priority. There is also an immediate requirement to look at the needs of countries such as Poland and others that are in negotiation to become members of an enlarged community. The marginal costs of Internet access for a PC owner have become increasingly small, yet they remain persistently higher than in the United States. In some European countries the cost of internet access is still a very real deterrent The report is hopeful of lower charges being achieved through increasing competition between suppliers. Speed (or, rather, the lack of it) also continues to act as a constraint. This is not just a matter of the time taken to wade through layer upon layer of densely populated pages. It also reflects the fact that some people will only be encouraged to use the internet if it is able to deliver information and entertainment in the same rich quality as off-line multimedia opportunities. That, the report notes, "cannot be offered adequately over the Internet of today". The Germans are getting there ahead of the rest of us when it comes to high speed connections. They already have more than two million ADSL subscribers, compared with 250.000 in the UK. But we do better than some - in Greece, for example, there are no broadband services whatsoever! Turning to online trading, we find that the UK has shown a strong lead. Some 40 per cent of our businesses sell through the web, four times the percentage found in France, despite their long-term cyber-affair with the once-sexy Minitel terminal. Half of all UK users have made an online purchase, compared with an EU average of just over one third. This may reflect the degree of UK linkage to US culture through a common language (well, to some extent!) and a readiness to use credit cards. The challenge lies in persuading consumers to use the internet for regular commercial transactions. People find it OK for a bit of fun, but are wary about letting the internet take over their lives. In this survey, only four per cent of users classified themselves as frequent online purchasers. Security continues to be a major concern for many - during past couple of years there has been a marked increase in the number of system violations. Yet only one in five UK users claimed to have personally experienced a virus attack during the past year: are folk being cagey in their replies? Growth in teleworking is stubbornly small. Amazingly, the UK comes right at the bottom of the European league, with only 15 per cent of those interviewed expressing an interest in this field. Across the EU, the level of interest reaches an average of nearly 25 per cent. However, in real terms the take-up is slow: in November 2001 less than 2 per cent of the European work force were teleworking on regular basis, although one state is clearly in the lead and that is Denmark. Yet there's something still rotten in the state At their meeting in 2000, the EU political leaders called for each member state to have all basic government services available online by the end of 2002. Such resources are among the broad target areas most mentioned by internet users, but for the most part all that can be done online at government sites these days is to download a form to fill in and post in to the department concerned. If there is to be true interactivity, then there is a need for significant changes in the back office with major investment in personnel training and new equipment. But that is only the beginning: there is a need to revisit the 2001 EU commitment to "recreate confidence in public institutions and decision-making structures" by creating "more open, more participatory, more accountable, more effective and more coherent governance". This will demand much more than simply "publishing council agendas over the internet, electronic voting or e-mail addresses for politicians". Online information on health issues has been noted as an area of special concern. There is real demand - witness a recent US survey, which showed that teenagers and young adults consult the Web for health-related information as much as they download music and play games online. Yet there are no common standards or procedures for checking the medical accuracy of web content. A common kind of cry among internet users! The EU commission would like to see the establishment of quality criteria for health-related websites, and it intends publish a communication on this issue during the course of this year (2002). So the benchmarking report is really just a first step. Technology can move very rapidly, but alteration of human behaviour needs more time to be achieved successfully. The EU commission is therefore looking for organisational changes, a shift in mindsets, the modernisation of regulation, different consumer behaviour, and political decisions. When the e-Europe initiative was launched in 2000, it was seen as an action to get Europe online quickly. There is now a need for a shift in emphasis towards more effective usage and greater availability of worthwhile content. Marconi managed it in 1922 Anyone driving into Chelmsford these days will see a new "one-liner" on the welcome signs. The Essex county town now styles itself as the "birthplace of radio", celebrating its long-standing links with the Marconi company. Here a young Italian engineer came to establish the world's first radio factory in a former silk mill. That was in 1898 and by 1912 he had already moved into purpose-built premises nearby. The early sets were used for aircraft communications and the government wanted to keep it that way. But the genie was not to stay in the bottle, and on June 15th 1920 the Australian prima donna Dame Nellie Melba came to the Marconi works in Chelmsford to perform the first publicised entertainment broadcast in Britain. Permission was given to transmit regular broadcasts for test purposes and a small station was set up in a wooden hut on land at the edge of Writtle, a village just outside the town. At first the engineers read out railway timetables, which were no doubt listened to avidly by the 1920's equivalent of those of us who crouched over our ZXs some sixty or so years later. These early broadcasts began on Tuesday 14th February 1922, and continued each week at the same time of time of day, occupying a half hour slot from 8 to 8.30 p.m. However, one of the engineers proved to be something of a maverick. Captain P P. Eckersley soon tired of reading timetables and went instead for live singers and off-the-cuff remarks. He stumbled upon a whole new dimension in radio and gave birth to the announcer/entertainer/DJ. Although power was restricted to 500 watts (at government insistence) the transmissions travelled long distances on a wavelength of 700 metres. Local demonstrations were also offered, such as that for the Chelmsford Engineering Society on Thursday 9th November. Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company was authorised to use a power of one kilowatt and a fixed wavelength of 400 metres for a half hour transmission aimed at a meeting taking place less than a mile from the transmitter site. The licence from the GPO concluded: "The apparatus and aerial at the temporary receiving station at the Agricultural College, Chelmsford, will no doubt be dismantled and removed as soon as possible after the demonstration". The fear was that use of the airwaves for frivolous purposes might restrict or interfere with aircraft radio and other more serious applications. It was claimed that a pilot crossing the Channel by night had been unable to lock onto a weather transmission because his receiver became swamped by music from Marconi's. We heard similar stories in the days of off-shore radio in the 1960's. No doubt there were also some feelings that the little station with the callsign 2MT was getting out of hand. The broadcasts had to cease as from 17th January 1923. The isle is full of noises Recently I took a walk in search of the Marconi transmitter site. It's now been turned into new homes and the name of the street is Melba Court. A visitor information panel says that the original wooden hut still survives but has been moved elsewhere. It now forms part of the Chelmsford Science and Industry Museum at Sandford Mill. A memorial window in Writtle parish church pays tribute to Marconi's work and was dedicated by his grandson in 1992. I stood very quietly at the entrance to Melba Court and listened for ghosts. It was almost exactly 80 years since that first Tuesday night broadcast. Taking that as a time line, our CCUG members' experiments from the ZX to the present day have filled up a good 25 per cent. My own first meeting with a modem takes me back at least a further decade, to the late 1960's. Before that, I still recall with great excitement the first BBC Saturday morning experiments in stereophony, using BBC television sound for one channel and the Third Programme for the other. Some of you will no doubt be able to go back even further and may well have memories of gathering around the earliest radio receiving sets. We have come so far in such a very short time. Once, the ether was still. Now, there is the blooming buzzing of a million voices. What will be the long-term effects of so much excitement within the radio spectrum? By plucking the strings of so many electromagnetic forces, are we orchestrating our own funeral march? What about the schools (and churches) who were happy to take money from the mobile phone service providers but who may now be having second thoughts as a result of pressure from anxious parents and angry residents? I am not naturally a scaremonger but as the sun went down on what used to be Signor Marconi's back lot I found myself deeply aware of how little I actually know about these things. I gather that many of our modern communication devices depend upon either exciting the particles or energising the waves, depending upon how we picture the carrier medium that used to termed "ether". What I really don't know is how we should measure the effects of all this activity. If we modulate a carrier, are we simply hitching a ride on the back of something that has been there in the background all the time, or are we doing something as potentially polluting as tossing garbage into a flowing river? Bats in the Belfry I have a leaflet issued by the Diocese of Chelmsford in January 2000 to provide guidance to parishes regarding the installation of telecommunications equipment in churches. It warns the local church that "information or communications passing through the system may offend against the religious or moral teaching of the Church of England" and recommends expert advice to ensure that the installation does not adversely affect the character or appearance of the building. The guidelines note that "there is continuing public concern about whether radiation given off by telecommunications equipment is harmful to health" and they recommend that no one should remain close to any part of the installation for any substantial period of time without protection. Two particular species are singled out for careful consideration: bats (who may become disoriented) and bellringers (who may need a protective layer to shield them if their bellchamber is close to the transmitter and they are in the habit of ringing for long periods at a time). Those who serve on school governing bodies may well have had to consider similar advice (except, perhaps, in relation to bats and bellringers) if approached by a mobile phone company with a request to site a transmitter within the perimeter of the school. Similarly, worried parents may have lobbied them if there is a base station overlooking the school premises. Government advice remains confident that we need have no worries, but a newly launched website seems to feed people's anxieties by providing lots of facts but very little information. I refer to "http://www.sitefinder.radio.gov.uk", which enables you to pinpoint every mobile phone base station in the UK. You are able to discover which company uses it and what is the power output both authorised and actual. All of which really tells you very little! It may of course help you to become an even warmer anorak ("just round this next bend there's a cunningly disguised Vodafone antenna…"). However, without knowing the tailor-made specification of that particular antenna and its field strength measurements across the target zone, I would say that you have very little hope of measuring its impact on the locality. Even with all that added information, it is hard to make any meaningful comparisons. What is a "safe" level of exposure? And why is it, I ask myself, that most of the protesters against these sites are those who themselves make use of mobile phone technology? And finally - a tip for getting in touch with your shadow If you have a mobile phone, I wonder how many numbers you have linked to the handset. In all probability it's at least two, although you may only know one of them. But if you have set up voicemail on your phone then the system will allocate a "shadow" number, which acts as the gateway to your personal answering service. When you divert all calls or some calls to this facility, you are in effect setting up an unconditional or a conditional divert to the shadow number. In some cases this will be a perfectly ordinary looking number which if directly dialled always connects to your voicemail. Other systems use virtual numbers that cannot be called from outside the same network, but all you have to do is tell your provider that you're travelling abroad and need a dedicated voicemail number to enable access when you're outside the country. However, if you don't keep using this special number from time to time (preferably at least once a month) you may lose it. I tell my closest family members my "real" mobile number but everybody else gets the "shadow" number. That's because I don't want to take calls from all and sundry while I'm queuing in the chip shop or rat-running the side streets to dodge traffic congestion in the vicinity of the crematorium. Of course, it's rather more attractive to do this if you're on a tariff that makes no charge for voicemail retrieval. That's all for now. More to follow in due course.... |