Ofcom consumer panel chair calls for online public services

UK communications regulator Ofcom’s consumer panel chair, Anna Bradley, as called for more interactive public services available online.

Speaking at the Westminster eForum in London yesterday, Bradley said that online services would play a major role in stimulating demand for broadband, but highlighted the concern that heavy users of public services including the elderly and people on low incomes could be excluded because they do not have access to the internet.

Bradley expressed support for the ‘Final Third’ fund to stimulate the development of next-generation access where commercial rollouts did not make sense.

The Final Third project aims to ensure next generation broadband coverage to at least 90% of households by 2017. It is called the Final Third Project on the basis that the market should deliver next generation broadband to two-thirds of UK households. The project would support rollout to the final third of homes unserved by the market.