Official unimpressed with Digital Britain initiative

Chairman of the Institute of Scotland and former Scottish chief of Microsoft, Raymond O’Hare, has expressed his dissatisfaction with the Digital Britain initiative, stating that it is outdated and unambitious.

The Digital Britain initiative aims to deal with a range of issues relating to areas such as broadband, telecoms, television, and radio. However, the initiative has recently been slated by chairman of the Institute of Scotland and former Scottish chief of Microsoft, Raymond O’Hare. He has hit out at the initiative stating that it lacks ambition and is outdated.

Following a recent meeting he described the initiative as ‘an outdated business model’. He added: “The report is also totally unambitious and ‘yesterday’s news’, when it comes to equipping a country like Scotland with the best technology around.”

He also spoke about how the lack of ambition with the Digital Britain initiative would affect the ability of Scotland to be competitive, stating: “It refers to a universal service target of equipping around 90 per cent of the UK population with at least two megabits per second (2 Mbps] broadband download speeds by 2012. How can we possibly compete when there are countries like Finland whose aim is to have speeds of up to 100 megabits for all by 2015.”

He went on to state that BT should not have to do everyone when it comes to broadband, stating: “As a commercial organisation BT had to justify its actions at all times. Instead, the Scottish Government should provide the lead in a combined public/private sector initiative to better equip Scotland with the best technological infrastructure available. Only then will Scotland attract new and highly lucrative business to its shores. The bottom line is that we must not be constrained by the unambitious targets set out in the latest Digital Britain report.”

Source – Business.Scotsman