Source: The amazing FFFFound, of course.
Category: ?
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world
That hath such people in’t!”
I’ve been following Journalism.co.uk‘s series on web accessibility with interest; get it here: Accessibility 2.0: How accessible are UK newspaper websites? Also on the accessibility theme, The New York Time’s newly launched TMagazine is just horrific… a quease-making morass of Flash that is absolutely fine to look at as long as you still believe that online mags should look and feel just like print mags, only worse. Ugh.
So the nice lady at O2 in Swansea says they have ample units in stock. The store will be closing today at 2pm and re-opening at 6:02pm, which is when the iPhone finally goes on sale in the UK. Like you needed me to remind you. 
The O2 iPhone site has a countdown clock, very exciting. Meanwhile, at AT Computers (which, I remind you, is the *only* Apple Store in Wales) they’re breathlessly anticipating Leopard’s arrival on October 26th. Sad, sad, sad.
This is from a careers advice quiz provided by Prospects, the UK’s official graduate careers website. Well, at least they’re being honest.
Of course, this post’s title should be read in the most sarcastic, cynical, embittered way possible, because what it refers to is yesterday’s story in the Western Mail criticising BT for not taking broadband internet access to mid Wales, a year after the Welsh Assembly Government saddled it with bags of dosh and the responsibility to ensure that Wales can claim to have 100 per cent broadband market penetration and uptake by 2007.
These were the requirements of a contract known as RIBS (Regional Innovative Broadband Support), which came with a budget of £13.4m. BT has thus far failed to deliver the contract requirements — i.e. 100 per cent broadband coverage in Wales by 2007 — because to do so would be unprofitable to the behemoth. In the report (mysteriously unfindable on the Western Mail’s site), a BT spokesman says: “We have never promised that we can connect everyone. We are a commercial company and we have to be sure projects/investments are commercially viable before we proceed.”
So, let me get this straight. BT was selected as WAG’s preferred supplier because, no doubt, WAG was confident that its preferred supplier would deliver what was required. Either BT lied through its teeth wilfully misrepresented its capability in order to win this contract (which is what happens in business), or WAG turned a panicky blind eye in the face of mounting public criticism following the three (self-imposed) deadlines it missed in 2005 to announce its RIBS partner (which is what happens in government).
And so the saga continues. Nevermind that what they’re currently touting as broadband is a paltry 512kbps/256kbps connection. Never mind that this time last year, a family-owned Welsh SME that had invested more than £300k in infrastructure, and could offer up to 10Mbps downstream (that’s ‘second generation broadband’ in WAGspeak) to a rural user base was forced to cease trading after BT muscled in on its territory, despite Assembly assurances that this wouldn’t be allowed to happen. (Ping Wales (RIP) followed this story to some extent, some coverage of which was picked up by The Register as well.)
Now, businesses in the area are facing the prospect of shelling out up to £20k to find their own solution to the problem, and are trying to get BT to pay for the costs. BT is apparently giving them the cold shoulder of corporate facelessness. I predict that as it was the Assembly itself that set the target of 100% broadband penetration (way to sway the electorate in a voting year), and as BT’s lobbyists work so very hard for their money, Welsh taxpayers will probably end up paying for whatever workaround is decided by committee to be the cheapest most cost-efficient and least embarassing way out of a tight spot.
And instead of feeling that warm and fuzzy sense of £13.4m well-spent in invigorating the Welsh telecoms sector, the Assembly will have succeeded only in keeping BT’s hands nice and dry so as to give it a better grip of its stranglehold on the market.
OT but notable: In researching this piece, I came across this delightful titbit: WAG has awarded a contract worth more than £25k, but of a value unspecified, for on-demand stress-relief massage and reflexology at its main offices around Wales. The Broadband Wales team is probably camped out in line, I’ll bet. 
Technorati Tags:
BT, Broadband Wales, RIBS, Welsh Assembly Government, telecoms
I returned from a hippie-ish weekend in Talybont to find an email from Ken Case, CEO of the OmniGroup, with (O Joy! O Rapture!) my feverishly-anticipated invitation to join the OmniFocus ‘sneaky peek’ beta testing group. I’d have had it weeks ago had Webquarry not stuffed up my email forwarding without telling me. :-p But, it’s here now, and I can’t wait to beta.
It occurs to me that if there’s a 12-step program out there for software junkies, maybe I should be on it…
Well, not actually, but I will be away for a while. Back on 25 June.
