Tony Blair launched a £1bn drive to get the government wired today, putting services online, promising to help businesses benefit from the internet and bring the web to poorer communities around the country.
Nobody could ever accuse the prime minister of not being able to talk the connected talk. He enthusiastically proclaimed that the rise of the internet was no dot.com fad but a "profound economic revolution". He said Britain could reverse its decades of decline in the 20th century by embracing the net, transforming itself into one of the world's most successful economies.
And, just like any good e-vangelist, he even made sure to dismiss a well-worn internet age cliché by adding: "There is no new economy." Instead: "There is one economy, all of it being transformed by information technology".
All rousing stuff, and much of it is much needed too. This kind of investment is just the thing to start closing a rapidly growing "digital divide", illustrated by a recent Guardian/ICM poll which found 59% of the most affluent AB demographic have access to the internet, against only 14% of the poorest DE group. The costs of getting online - a computer, modem, telephone bills - have threatened to leave the internet the preserve of the white, middle class and well-off.
Yet, for all the good sense and swagger of today's announcement, you could be forgiven if you had a few nagging doubts about all this. For a start, there's a sense of déjà vu - haven't you heard much of this before? Don't worry - a trawl through the government's own website shows all this is recycled stuff.
Stretch your memory back to March 30 of this year, and you might recall a "special information-age cabinet meeting" at which the prime minister made a similar commitment, promising to get all government services online by 2005, pulling forward an earlier target date of 2008. Similarly, at the start of last March, Blair made a commitment to ensure that everyone who wants internet access would get it - again, by 2005.
But if a week is a long time in politics, five years is generations on the web. The commitment to universal internet access, in particular, looks a tad disingenuous when one considers the number of ways we will have by then to get on to the web.
Analysts like Forrester Research predict that internet-equipped PCs, digital television, games consoles, mobile telephones, and other devices will serve a hefty chunk of the population by 2005. A greater need exists now, when PCs are still expensive and alternative means of proper access (digital TV "walled gardens" and Wap text services don't really count) are still some way off.
Worse is Blair's lauding of the best off-peak rates for connection to the internet in the world. Were he really in tune with online realities, praising the existing telecoms arrangements would not have crossed his mind.
Blair was overhasty in applauding AltaVista UK's now-discredited unmetered internet service offer back in March. Since then, net users have been left frustrated by continued per-minute access costs and assorted unmetered access fiascos. Even BT's SurfTime package, which we assume must be what Blair was praising (it offers unmetered access and evenings and weekends for a flat monthly fee), has raised the ire of British net users, because it is not available in many areas.
The digital divide feels very real indeed to those who can't get cheap access like their friends because of BT, or who can't get online at all because their ISP has gone to the wall thanks to AltaVista's empty hype.
So, while any effort to narrow the digital divide and promote e-commerce is to be welcomed, you could be forgiven for saying that you've heard it all before - and refusing to believe any of it until results, rather than rhetoric, hit your screen.
Useful links
open.gov.uk
Forrester Research
