How has the role of the ISP changed since your Demon days? The role of the ISP back then was pioneering - now it's a telecom job. A competent ISP nowadays should have an almost 100% service and I find it incredible that several of the ISPs I use are not able to provide as good a service as BT does on phone calls.
Broadband Britain? It'll happen - despite BT. What happened is a socialist government lost its power - BT effectively now runs Oftel. Strong government with a strong regulator and "broadband Britain" will happen quickly.
You sit on the advisory council for the Foundation for Information Policy Research. What are its objectives? The job of the FIPR is to persuade government to listen to reason. Governments don't make bad decisions lightly; they spend months studying things, then make bad decisions. A recent example was the discussion around the publication of private keys for encryption. We have a lot of the top people from hi-tech industries, people who would never work for government but who are happy to work for FIPR, telling people why the law they're about to make won't work.
Is there a demand for 3G in the UK? As such no. As part of something else, absolutely. Bluetooth is wonderful as part of another product but Bluetooth for the sake of Bluetooth, no. When I plug my laptop into the Lan I get 100Mb. When I plug my wireless network card in I get 11Mb, which is more than enough. Why should I have to dial up at 56k? Why is nobody doing an omnipresent wireless network as the technology's there to do it?
Has the mobile reached a hiatus? I had a car phone in 1987 and a mobile since the day the first one came out here. The pricing is still ludicrous, although Orange has done most to correct their pricing. BT should really be turning all their copper lines into ADSL and giving you a phone as a by-product. My mobile data-card, or my mobile used on infrared or Bluetooth, should work at 64k at least. Broadband over a mobile network is perfectly possible.
How did we live without data-transfer? In 1985 we were running a software house and one of our clients required a whole new program update. We had a 1200 half-duplex modem so we sent it via that and sent a floppy in a taxi as back up. The transmission didn't break but the taxi still got there first. From London to Southend.
Favourite gadgets? I'm building a house in Spain and Mark Boyce, who works for me here, suggested we build in X10, which is signalling over the power supply of the house. I'll now have a home with no light switches attached to the lights. I can turn any light or appliance on or off via the web. I can send the house an SMS (text message) to turn the heating on an hour before I get home. One key will turn the alarm on and close all the shutters. So my favourite gadget of 2002 will be getting all this technology to work!
