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paper where the broadband policies will be detailed out.

Referring to early versions of Obama's broadband plan, the second answer would indicate the important role of the consumer in policy making. The flaw with the plan was that the US government thought people will log on to broadband once it was readily available. The Pew Internet and American Life project found out last year that more than 50% of broadband non- adopters were not connected by giving reasons like nothing interesting or useful. The basic reasons behind not taking up internet are that it can be boring, difficult and threatening. It is important that the government has strategies in place so has to build up awareness of the benefits that the extensive use of internet can have. Given the report, the government does not understand this, let alone embracing the cultural changes being brought by the web (Leadbeater, 2009). The third question addresses issues regarding innovation and profitability. 'The key factor for productivity growth in this knowledge-intensive, networked- economy is innovation' (Castells, 2009, p. 32). Universal broadband would be essential infrastructure of UK's future. However even more important is the creativity and innovation element of consumers and entrepreneurs to construct the social and business models of the future. Digital Britain has very little to say about these challenges (Leadbeater, 2009). As mentioned earlier, for consumers to use the web productively a minimum speed has to be established and this is all looked into by the government.

可用性-Availability:

In accordance with the Digital Britain report the availability of broadband has two components: 'the network of today available to everyone and the network of tomorrow reaching a large proportion of the population' (DBR, 2009,p. 53). There would be dual action taking place one,to guarantee the delivery of the Universal Service Commitment of 2 mbps speed and secondly the availablity of the next generation broadband availability. The report estimates up to 1.5 million households many which have little or no broadband would recieve it as a result of Universal Service Commitment. The next generation broadband or the superfast broadband will only be concentrated in two thirds of the population leaving the 'final third' with the current generation broadband. The majority funding of this initiative as stated by the government will be undertaken through market- led investment with little degree of targeted intervention. In all fairness the report also proposes pulic support in order to provide the next generation network to the 'final third'. There would be a next generation fund created where the two thirds who would recieve superfast broadband will pay 50 pence per month or 6 pounds for all copper fixed lines. According to estimates this fund would be expected to raise upto 150-175 million per year, and this amount might be sufficient to connect the final third by 2017. The part of the report regarding the broadband speed being 2 mbps and palacing a levy of 50 pence per month was heavily critised by various industry experts.

The UK is the world's sixth -largest economy, yet according to the report it does not justify similar investments to other countries like Korea, Japan, and Australia which are all aiming to deliver 100 mbps as standard speed. A significant majority of internet users are already finding the speed