The government has set out it's view on universal broadband, peer-to-peer file sharing and more in the new "Digital Britain Report". Many are unhappy with the vaguely-proposed 50p per telephone line levy that it is suggested would help pay for rural broadband development... what do you think? Here's the Digital Britain report!

From the FSB's perspective, over 60% of our members polled say we should be looking to 8 Mbps - NOT 2Mbps as the goal - REMEMBER - this is proposed for completion in 4 year's time, not now!! What will we all be doing in 4 years??

In every region (33 regions) of the FSB, staff look after their own section of our website and so we have something like 50+ contributors in all. Managing this is no easy job but with forthcoming changes to the width of the site and other improvements including our new info section, we hope to provide a great experience for all our viewers.

"I visited the new FSB website for the first time yesterday and was really impressed.  Aside from looking great I found the site simple to navigate and information easier to find.  At last, the FSB has a website that truly reflects the professional and effective nature of their work."

All but a small percentage of our 213,000+ members are now connected to the Internet and something like 70% have their own websites. They join well over a billion people who use the Internet worldwide.

Web 2.0 has had a profound effect on website development - according to the BBC, 50% of under-30s users expect to walk into work and use such technologies to interact with business colleagues - and customers - yet many businesses are run by people who don't understand the benefits and look only at the downside. If you're one of the latter, I strongly recommend listening to this BBC broadcast. Also, if your interested in IT trends, read this report

iPad Madness

You could be forgiven when reading the papers that the world has gone iPad mad, certainly this new announcement from Apple should trigger off a bunch of new products as competitors struggle to copy.. but on the surface of it this seems little more than an enlarged, glorified iTouch. It's certainly the right size and looks beautiful - but as for the business case for investing in yet another monthly outlay to go along with your mobile phone outlay... that remains to be seen. I think it will be summer before we see whether or not this one's a winner!

Peter Scargill

National IT Chairman, Federation of Small Businesses

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