Superfast Rural Broadband!
The Department of Culture, Media and Science (DCMS) has stated that as of this month the Government’s backed roll out of superfast broadband to rural communities is to increase in pace. The first people to benefit should be farms and dairies with the service being provided to approximately 10,000 properties per week, increasing in the spring of 2014 to 25,000 properties per week and by that summer to 40,000 per week. Ed Vaizey, the Communications Minister stated that “The coming months will see a rapid acceleration in the number of rural businesses and homes able to access superfast broadband”. The DCMS has issued a statement stating that “nearly all” of the projects are at delivery stage with some having already been completed. It would be interesting to know which ones are outstanding. Ultimately by 2016 the aim is to have 90% of next generation of broadband coverage – although the hope is that will be achieved by the end of 2015. However, there does seem to be some anomaly in the information that is coming out. In a report the Prime Minister, David Cameron, told a liaison committee that the figures were 95% by 2017 and then in another statement said that it would be 99% by 2018! The question is will it take until 2015 to get 90% coverage with another 5% following by 2017 and the remaining 4% by 2018? Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) aims for 95% of properties in the Isles of Scilly and Cornwall to be connected next year and it is expected that Devon and Somerset should be connected by 2016. The DCMS have even said that rural broadband speeds are rising quicker than urban ones. It has calculated that the speeds in rural areas have risen by 6.9% since May 2012 and 14.1% since May 2011. The question is what was the starting point for these calculations? However, during the summer Ofcom reported the following findings that in May 2013 the download speed for residential properties in the UK was 14.7Mbps with some areas actually achieving 26.4Mbps as opposed to 9.9Mbps for rural areas. There has been criticism from a select committee that the Government has grossly mismanaged the BDUK scheme (which is publicly funded) and which the Prime Minister has said is “slightly unfair”. There is also condemnation of the Government for permitting BT to become a “quasi-monopoly” by winning every BDUK contract. The National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have also questioned the Government’s handling of this. BT has been accused of prohibiting the publication of coverage information by local authorities. So I am sure that people can draw their own conclusions from this. One of the critics Janice Banks, Chief Executive, of Action with Communities in Rural England (Acre), has said that some councils have been able to publish maps showing the proposed coverage but the data is sketchy and people have been unable to properly ascertain if they will benefit. Therefore, people in those communities are now playing a game of “wait and see” as they are unable to make a decision on whether to look at alternative forms of broadband connection. Ms Banks also said “This Government want to be sure rural areas get a fair deal from all Government policy. We fear that, once again rural communities are getting a raw deal”. Finally the Prime Minister has defended this by saying “If you stand back and look at it, three years into Government, when we came to power, there was virtually nothing going on with the rural broadband” He also insisted that there is a “realistic programme” to ensure 95% coverage with a view to having 99% coverage by 2018.
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HELP! I NEED A NOTARY AND DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START
Right! You’re about to do something that involves a foreign country, whether it be moving there, working there, or dealing with assets there. You’ve had a document or a set of instructions from the relevant authority and often there will be an instruction to have a notary public sign or witness the document. The chances are that you have rarely heard of a notary public before this point and are therefore not sure where to begin. A notary public, generally speaking, is a legally trained individual who has the role of attesting, authenticating, and certifying documents under their seal and signature for use anywhere in the world. For instance, if you have a property in Florida that needs to be sold and you cannot go to Florida to sign the papers, the relevant papers can be signed in England or Wales before the notary. If you are starting a job in China, the authorities in China will need sight of your qualification certificates but will only verify them as authentic if a notary has certified them as authentic. And it gets better. The receiving country might also want something called an ‘apostille’ attached to the notary’s certificate. The apostille is a small certificate that can be attached to a UK document enabling that document to be recognised outside of the UK. Most European countries require this. The best place to start is to contact your local solicitor practice to see if they have any notary public working there. Failing that, the Notaries Society website is useful for finding a notary local to you: http://www.thenotariessociety.org.uk/find-a-notary A notary will insist on a face to face meeting with you. You must provide satisfactory evidence of ID to confirm you are who you say you are. The notary will usually sign and seal the documents at the meeting for you to take away…subject to payment of the notary’s fee. If you need any further assistance with what a notary does or if you need one, contact me and I will do my very best to assist. What Image? If you are a small business and like to blog, statistics have shown that readers are far more likely to notice your blog if you have an image with it. However it is not easy for some businesses to use images if they don’t have a product but provide a service. I found an article on Inc.com in which a group of people can help each other in solving problems. I recently chaired a meeting of the CAP Business and as a group we did some brain writing. Brain writing I hear you say in puzzlement! The theory goes that if you have a group of people in a room only a small percentage of those people will speak, there are always the quiet contemplators, the shy that think that they have nothing of interest to say. Brain writing helps everyone to express his or her ideas. How does it work? Everyone is supplied with small pieces of paper; anything will do, small index cards, Stickies etc. In our case we were trying to get ideas of images that people could use with their blogs. I went round the table one member at a time and everyone in the room had to write down one object that they would associate with that type of business, at the end of the activity each member goes away with a pile of ideas from all of their colleagues. A simple but effective way to help each other solve problems. Why not give it a try? Access to Adult Content on Wi-fi
The mobile security firm Adoptive Mobile has carried out research on accessibility to unfiltered adult content on free wi-fi hot spots. The researchers visited 179 establishments in Manchester, London and Birmingham and tried to log-on to legal websites but ones which contained explicit content. The results were very concerning in that 80% granted access to drug related content, 30% failed to use filtering to prevent access to pornographic sites, 53% had no restriction on online stores selling swords and knives and 20% had no restriction on access to online sex dating sites. Whilst most people block these types of content on wi-fi used at home it comes as a surprise that this is rarely the case when in cafes, restaurants, hotels etc. and this is very bad news for parents with children who have smart phones, gaming consoles and tablets. Graeme Goffey of Adoptive Mobile stated that this was “for every parent across the UK this report will come as an unwelcome surprise”. Sky News recently interviewed a group of 15 and 16 year olds outside of a café in Manchester and they admitted that they had all owned smart phones since they were 13 and went online with wi.fi. Also they mentioned that they knew people who accessed sites which their parents forbade them from accessing. In an interview with Sky News one of the world’s leading authorities on the use of the internet by children and young people, John Carr, said that “Virgin, 02 and Sky have already block access to adult content and other major wi-fi providers in the UK, BT, Arquiva and Nomad have announced their intention to do the same by the end of the year. He went on to say that “there is also some talk about developing a “kitemark” hotels, trains and buses that provide wi-fi access to confirm that they provide a filtered service”. Children’s charities are running a campaign to ban adult content on all public wi-fi and this has received backing of Prime Minister David Cameron and a spokesperson for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said “The Government is committed to protecting children online which is why we have been working closely with the major internet service providers, who have already put filters in place anywhere children are likely to be to block pornographic content. “The main provisions cover 90% of all connections in the UK and this report shows that our approach is working and we are ahead of many other countries in protecting children online. Is there such a thing as thinking too much? Surely it’s good to think about things. Taking the time to think about what needs to be done and how you’re going to do it makes perfect sense and is the obvious thing to do. The trouble is that there‘s a very fine line between thinking and over thinking. When you get it right you contemplate how you will get the task done; what methods you could use; anticipate any foreseeable difficulties and consider the various outcomes. All of which contributes to how well you tackle the task in hand. Once you’ve spent the time deliberating you then act upon it. But sometimes thinking too much about a problem actually stops you doing anything about it and won’t necessarily make it easier to solve. Suddenly the problem seems more complicated, not less, and it’s even harder to make a decision or take action. In fact rather than helping resolve the problem over thinking creates a much bigger problem because the more time you spend (waste) thinking about it the more insurmountable the problem becomes. So if you find yourself thinking yourself out of doing something, stop, switch the mind off and take action. Getting started can be the hardest but most important thing because once you’re involved in the practical details of the task in hand you’re paying less attention to your thoughts. As Napoleon Bonaparte said “take time to deliberate, but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in” and let’s face it he did win rather a lot of battles. To find out more go to http://www.refocuser.com/2009/08/9-ways-to-stop-overthinking-everything/ |
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