April's Column By New Media Age Editor Mike Nutley
It might seem a strange thing to say when fewer than 1m homes have a connection, but broadband is a technology in transition. The nature of that transition can be most clearly seen in the evolution of BT's broadband offering. The initial campaign, which broke last year, highlighted the two aspects of broadband that have always been seen as its most powerful; its speed, and the fact that it's always on. The latest drive, seen as essential for BT to hit its target of 5m broadband connections by 2005, is a range of products and services under the Home Of Possibilities banner. It includes home networking, either wired or wireless; remote home security monitoring, a portable digital media player, and BT's tie-up with Microsoft to launch Xbox Live. And the difference is between what we thought broadband was for, and how people actually use it. For all but the earliest adopters, the first experience of broadband is at work, where it looks like one pipe going into one computer. Your first experience of domestic broadband is the same. And in both cases, you were probably dazzled by the speed at which you were able to download music or video clips. But the problem with speed is that you get used to it, and instead people who've had broadband at home for a while start to say that the best thing about it is that it's always on.
This means you start to use the Internet in a new way. You refer to it more often, you start to store personal information such as phone numbers and addresses on it. But it's still one computer connected to one pipe.
BT's announcement of Home Of Possibilities last month looks likely to take that much further. It takes the networked home that has replaced convergence as the model for future domestic computing and brings it to the mass-market.
A key selling point of broadband for many people is that they don't have to get off the phone to use the Internet. The networked home takes that further. What broadband allows is a computer in the front room that looks like a TV, a workstation in the office, a digital media player hooked up to the hi-fi, and all the computers you've ever owned scattered around the house; in the kids' bedrooms, in the kitchen, etc. There might even be a place for the Internet-enabled fridge.
Of course this still leaves several questions to be answered. Most importantly, what about those people who have yet to get an Internet connection at all? The digital divide has largely fallen off the agenda, but it's a far bigger jump from no connection to narrowband Internet than it is from narrowband to broadband. Of course, increasing Internet penetration creates its own pull, driving people to see what their friends and workmates are making such as fuss about, but that will not be enough. And the greater the benefit people get from their broadband connections, the bigger the digital divide is likely to get.
Michael Nutley, Editor, New Media Age, http://www.nma.co.uk/