When culture secretary Ben Bradshaw finished his speech introducing the Digital Britain report to Parliament, his Tory shadow stood up and dismissed the report as a “disappointment”.

Over the next few days you will undoubtedly hear other vested interests proclaiming the faults of the wide-ranging plan, pointing out its deficiencies, omissions and flaws.

My advice would be to keep the well-worn phrase “you can’t please all of the people all of the time” in mind as you assess the responses.

If you put aside the inevitable quibbles about individual proposals and recommendations, this is a hugely ambitious programme and frankly the government deserves congratulation for attempting it. If there is one major criticism I would make, it is to ask why we waited so long for such a report.

If Digital Britain is implemented as planned, it will help the UK take a huge step forward in putting technology at the heart of our economy, our workplaces and our lives – something that Computing has called for more times than I can remember, and which can only benefit the IT profession.

The £6 per year “broadband tax” to fund rollout of next-generation networks will attract a lot of headlines and controversy, but if it helps deliver superfast connectivity, it will be worth it.

There will be cynicism – from me included – about a lot of the proposals, especially relating to skills development, that resemble too many past, failed initiatives.

And there will be those who question the commitment to online public services, universal broadband and digital inclusion after even Ofcom research has shown there is a significant minority of people in the UK who have no interest in going online whatsoever.

But as report author Lord Carter said: “Digital Britain is a statement of intent and ambition, a commitment to infrastructure and access, and an overdue recognition of the industrial importance of the creative industries."

The plan is best viewed as a whole, and indeed this may be judged greater than the sum of its parts, which will be pulled apart and scrutinised and in some cases no doubt discarded. It’s a first step and mistakes will inevitably be made along the way.

But come on – IT industry, digital industry, creative industries, ask yourselves: This is far, far better than the nothing we have been used to.

Click here for more Computing coverage of Digital Britain.

BT has become the latest ISP to complain that content providers should contribute to the cost of their bandwidth-hungry services to broadband customers.

BT Retail managing director John Petter said that content providers could not expect “a free ride” if users are to continue receiving services at an affordable price.

Tiscali has been another high-profile advocate of this so-called two-tier internet in the past (although quite possibly because it was financially screwed).

A debate is rapidly brewing about what web-heads know as “net neutrality” – the concept that all content on the internet is considered equal. ISPs say this is unsustainable – they claim that high-bandwidth services such as YouTube and the BBC iPlayer are so popular they hog too much space in their broadband pipes, which costs them a lot of money to ensure that all users get the service they pay for.

BT is now calling for the BBC and others to pay ISPs for delivering their services, as their share of meeting the needs of broadband users.

It’s a particularly topical debate, with the Digital Britain report due next week expected to introduce universal broadband to anyone who wants it across the UK.

I’ll get back to my personal view – which is that the ISPs should get used to it and stop moaning – later.

What entertains me most about the argument is how everyone tries to find the best analogy to support their point of view.

BT has apparently said that carrying content is like a postman having to carry heavy parcels, so they cost more to post.

Let’s put aside the fact that heavy parcels are carried in vans for now, so as not to disabuse BT too soon.

Let’s look at some alternatives – some of which are bound to feature at some point in the future.

• Do department stores pay extra for the cost of pavements, due to the extra damage caused by so many people walking in and out of their doors?

• Should popular tourist destinations fund the roads and railways that people use to visit them?

• Should companies that rent that top floors of skyscrapers pay extra for the upkeep of the lifts?

Honestly. Roll up, roll up and pick your analogy – there is one to suit every nuance of the argument.

BT says that popular sites with hungry content cost ISPs more to provide the necessary bandwidth. Hogwash. The bandwidth already exists, and broadband users are simply choosing what they want to use it for. If you switch off the iPlayer, precisely the same amount of bandwidth will still be in existence as was before, just not so much of it will be used.

BT has rightly been given credit for helping the spread of Broadband Britain, but it had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the internet age. Before former chief executive Ben Verwaayen came on board, the telco – and most ISPs – were resisting investment in broadband rollout, saying there was no content that justified it.

As has since been proven, broadband networks are very much a case of “if you build it, they will come.”

And ISPs cannot have one law for others and another for them. Strange how they always manage to find a justification for the fact that nobody actually gets to use the advertised bandwidth on their services anyway – don’t they love the words “up to”.

Broadband has been a huge money-spinner for ISPs, BT included (well, perhaps not Tiscali). The only reason they have made so much money is because web sites offer exciting content that consumers want to access, so they have to buy broadband connections.

If the BBC and others come up with great content ideas, more people will want to use the internet, more people will want to rent broadband lines, and ISPs make more money.

Perhaps the BBC should ask BT to help fund the iPlayer, given that so many broadband customers have opted to purchase BT’s services to access the site?

For the umpteenth time today, I have just sat and watched a blank screen on my browser, waiting – usually in vain – for the web site of the Digital Britain Forum to load.

Not for the first time, it came back with a timeout connection error.

Mind you, earlier today it was working, and I tried to watch the live video stream of prime minister Gordon Brown’s speech to the high-profile event, to hear what he had to say about our digital future.

From what I could tell, he said this: “I clck zxxc Britzx digital economingft is futurppptthh an pk globlll spthzx.”

Insightful stuff, eh?

You know those comedians who pretend their microphone is not working, and talk in garbled bursts of intermittent word parts? It was rather the same experience. Add to that the stream being seemingly broadcast at about three frames per second, and you’ll understand why the government has managed to royally shoot itself in its digital foot. (Even if they acknowledged the problems and eventually put them right).

The Digital Britain Summit brought together a fantastic line up of speakers from ministers to business leaders across the creative, digital, technology and communications industries. It is undoubtedly the best line up of speakers and experts you will find at such an event for some time. It should have been a showcase for the UK’s ambitious digital plans. Yet they couldn’t even get the web site right.

Why didn’t I go to the event, just in case, you might well ask. That’s because the government didn’t actually tell anybody in the IT press about the event until yesterday. And then, when we asked for a press pass, we were told we didn’t need one. Because it would all be available live online. Ahem.

Of course, the government is being all trendy and social media about it, with a “live blog” on the web site (when it’s available), which is useful, but is clearly one poor bloke desperately trying to type while the speakers talk.

There’s also the obligatory Twitter feed from the event, which includes startling nuggets of information such as: “Large round of applause as the panel exists the stage” and “Johannes B. larcher explains what Hulu is” (sic).

Although my personal favourite Twitter update today was when Gordon Brown reportedly said: "We are I'm a new global age" (sic). After he saved the world earlier this year, it's good to see that Gordon now plans to beat that by personally becoming a new global age.

Of course, because Twitter is involved, Stephen Fry was also invited along as an expert panelist.

And to add a final insult to online injury, apparently Tom Watson, the minister for digital engagement - someone who, with that job title, you would have thought to be an essential contributor to the event - was unable to attend because his invitation arrived too late.

I wish I didn’t feel the need to be so critical. The mere existence of this event, and of the Digital Britain report and strategy it is discussing, is such a huge step forward and the government deserves congratulations for putting “digital” at the heart of the UK’s economic future.

But it inspires so little confidence when they cannot even get the basics of a half decent web site right for such an important summit. It leaves the impression of a digital elite discussing the most social and democratic of technologies in exclusivity in web-darkened rooms.

It’s ham-fisted, divisive and slightly depressing.

Digital Britain is not just the future for the UK IT industry, it is the future for the UK economy. The government needs to inspire confidence to see it through. Getting the most basic of basics right would be a start.

If a police CCTV camera had captured sneaky images of protesters provoking riots or causing damage during last week’s G20 marches in London, you can bet there would have been an outcry.

“Big brother,” they would have yelled. “It’s the surveillance state,” would have been the cry.

Yet when a passer-by captures on camera (and sells to a national newspaper) footage of a police office scandalously attacking an innocent man who happened to walk home through the protest route, and who minutes later died of a heart attack, it is a triumph for democracy.

Sorry, but the reality is, you can’t have it both ways.

Quite possibly, the tragic shots of the late Ian Tomlinson were taken on a mobile phone, of the type that most of us wander around with these days, each of us capable of filming whatever we see in the street and posting it on YouTube.

In the same way, we can take photos of whatever we like and many of us post those on Flickr or Picasa or Facebook for the world to see. But if Google takes a picture of your house and puts it on Street View, that is deemed an invasion of privacy.

I understand, of course, the fundamental difference between the opposing situations here.

One is an act by an individual, unlikely in the majority of cases to be noticed by many people other than their friends and online contacts.

The other is a major organisation – whether a company or a government – undertaking an industrial-scale, systematic approach.

Ultimately, like so much in the privacy debate, it boils down to trust. Most of us assume an implied trust in the individual, that they are taking pictures of videos for their own (relatively) private purposes. But we do not trust corporations or arms of the state, because they are big, untouchable, and out to get us (or so the conspiracists would have us believe).

Yet you cannot have one law for the large, and another for the small.

You can say that us plucky mobile phone users are watching the watchers, standing up for the individual against the might of the state. Very fair point. But does a police CCTV camera that catches a murderer, or prevents some other serious crime, not exist to protect the individual too?

The surveillance state debate is a critical one that is yet to be fully addressed. But it is too simplistic to point fingers only at the government. To resolve the privacy challenge, it is just as important to look at ourselves.

Here's my personal take on the nine IT priorities for 2009, as first published in Computing this week.

The economy

Like it or not, the state of the economy will overshadow everything else this year. Ignore all the predictions ­ the only thing anyone can say with certainty is that nobody really knows what will happen. But cost control and efficiency will be the watchwords for IT decision-makers nonetheless. For IT professionals, job security will be a concern. But hopefully far-sighted businesses will look after their valuable IT experts ­ after all, they will need you once the recession is over.

Privacy

After a year of endless data-loss stories, the privacy of our personal information has become a top priority. Tackling privacy concerns and reassuring the public is one of the defining challenges of the digital age. Without confidence in the integrity and confidentiality of our data, there could be a backlash against the “database state” that would set back the role of technology for years. The worries are genuine and justified ­ and the government has to respond.

Collaboration

If there is one potentially game-changing technology for companies, it is collaboration. Businesses have yet to fully exploit the techniques exemplified by social networking sites such as Facebook and tools such as blogs and wikis, but many look enviously at the potential for improving interaction and information sharing between staff and with customers, suppliers and partners. The technology will rarely be a limiting factor ­ this is more of a cultural challenge. But in tough times, firms that collaborate most effectively will thrive.

Next-generation broadband

Most experts agree that building a high-speed broadband infrastructure is an important part of the UK’s future economic wellbeing ­ but with a price of up to £28bn, it won’t come cheap. The government will not pay, and BT needs reassurances that the benefits of investment will not be curtailed by regulations. But decisions need to be made on the structure, funding and rollout of next-generation broadband ­ both as an economic stimulus and for the sake of international competitiveness.

Cloud computing

The term “cloud computing” already sounds very 2008, but the buzzword is becoming widely used so we should get used to it for a while. However, the technologies and trends that the phrase encompasses are here to stay. Software as a service, virtualisation, utility computing, Web 2.0 ­ these are all different aspects of the move to software and hardware hosted on the internet. Large firms are some way off moving critical infrastructure to the cloud ­ but growth is likely to come from smaller organisations. Cloud will be this year’s green in vendor marketing.

Big government IT projects

With vast sums being spent on major projects such as ID cards and the NHS National Programme for IT, opposition politicians sniff an opportunity to make mischief for a government that is borrowing more than ever and needs to show prudence in other areas. There will be further calls to scrap, delay or review big IT initiatives ­ but the government must resist. IT is central to modernising public services ­ it is hard to seriously imagine an NHS without electronic patient records in 10 years’ time, for example ­ but these big programmes must do better.

Mobile

The future of technology is, without doubt, mobile. The big network operators and handset manufacturers are already focusing on the mobile web. Ofcom will start to auction vast amounts of radio spectrum this year, leading to new services and better, faster coverage. The growth of mobile technology will be driven by consumers but increasingly sets expectations for business users. Low-price laptops and powerful netbooks will make computing on the move
a standard.

The environment

Most IT managers have been thoroughly greenwashed by vendor marketing in the past 18 months, and a certain cynicism has inevitably developed about green computing. Nonetheless, it is acknowledged that IT has an energy-efficiency problem. Best practice is emerging from early adopters that will show the way for others to reduce the energy consumption of their IT, and since this is an effective way to cut costs too, there is little reason not to proceed. Clean technology will be one of the best-funded areas of research and development this year.

Innovation

Any IT leader who does not have innovation as a priority is failing their organisation. The role of IT is increasingly that of the innovator, driving change through the understanding of how technology can improve operations, create new ways of working and develop additional revenue streams. In a recession, innovation only grows in importance. IT leaders who demonstrate the benefits of IT-enabled innovation will be the success stories of the year.

On the walk from Oxford Circus tube station to the Computing office in London’s Soho, there is a Carphone Warehouse shop. It is normally unremarkable – except today at 9am there was a queue of (mainly male) people outside, apparently eager to be the first to buy the new 3G iPhone, out today.

Well, you might have thought, there’s a popular product. The last times there were queues in Oxford Street were for the opening of a new Primark store and the latest Harry Potter book.

But in this case, there also happened to be a camera crew set up outside the phone shop to film the queue. And another camera crew inside, no doubt waiting to film the “rush” of punters to get their hands on an iPhone.

Hmm. In-demand, or very carefully stage managed? I think the latter.

Apple, O2 and Carphone Warehouse have done a great PR job on the new phone – creating the illusion of massive demand regardless of how many units they will ship.

Newspaper stories this morning claimed that supply was limited to one iPhone per customer, or two per business. Given the big bucks Apple is chasing by establishing the product as an genuine corporate alternative to the BlackBerry, this is hardly likely to be the case.

Imagine the conversation: “Hi Apple, I’m the IT manager at [insert global multinational company]. I’d like to buy 10,000 iPhones please.”

“Sorry Mr Global Multinational. You can only have two.”

Yeah, right.

It’s become classic consumer electronics marketing – create a buzz around a product by making people think everyone is desperate to own one.

In the case of the new iPhone, it probably needs the buzz. After all, the great new features of the second-generation product include 3G connectivity for faster web surfing – already available in, erm, every other product on the market. And an online store of 900 ready-to-download consumer and business applications to help make your smartphone more functional.

Or you could buy a Symbian-based phone and download any of the 9,000-plus applications already developed for that platform.

Oh, and the iPhone costs a bomb.

Perhaps I’ve been in this game too long and the cynicism has set in after seeing too many product launches, but if anything is more likely to turn me off the iPhone – already the most over-hyped technology product in history – it’s the stage-managed artifice surrounding a me-too, catch-up phone.

Computing is attending SAP's Sapphire conference to meet and talk to the software giant's customers. We are, as always, far more interested in the real-life business experience of IT leaders - our readers - than the detail of the technology itself.

But for once, I found myself genuinely impressed by a product demonstration today.

SAP has worked with BlackBerry maker Research in Motion to integrate its business applications with the BlackBerry user interface and have created a truly seamless connection between the two.

The demo featured the RIM executive who was presenting going into his BlackBerry calendar, finding a meeting with a customer, then at the click of a button bringing up that customer's history from RIM's corporate SAP software.

It is the first time I have seen a real business-focused innovation in the mobile technology world for some time, and an example of the way that business executives will be using their mobile computers - be they BlackBerrys, phones or smartphones - to really keep up with the organisation away from the office.

Email and calendars are the easy and obvious tools for flexible working, but there has been much less progress made by IT vendors in making the mobile properly a part of the core business applications that actually run the company.

SAP and BlackBerry are onto a winning combination - and an example of what will one day be the norm for business.

If you’re consumed by doubt over who killed President Kennedy, intrigued about whether or not the Pentagon was actually hit by a plane on 9/11, or if you’re still out to get Prince Philip for driving the white Fiat that took out Princess Diana, then the world of undersea cables is probably taking up a lot of your time at the moment.

Over the past week, four telecoms cables at the bottom of the sea connecting the Middle East and North Africa have “failed”, disrupting internet traffic and telecommunications – and hence electronic trade – in several countries across the region.

Broken undersea cables are, as you can imagine, not a frequent occurrence – but it does happen often enough to warrant a small fleet of repair ships ready to take action.

The unusual number and the particular geography of these problems have kept the internet conspiracists very happy.

First reports suggested that a trailing anchor had damaged a couple of co-located cables near Alexandria, until the Egyptian authorities denied the presence of any ships in that area.

Since then there have been suggestions of CIA dirty tricks, plans to spoil a new Iranian online oil exchange, or even botched attempts to install covert listening devices on the cables themselves.

Matt Walker, a senior analyst at Ovum RHK, gives a very good – and sensible - account of the likely circumstances:

“Of the four reported and confirmed failures, two are on cables in the Mediterranean, two in the Persian Gulf; at least one of these may be a power failure, not a cable cut, and hence the landing station is the likely culprit,’ he wrote.

“The Persian Gulf is shallow but the Mediterranean reaches depths of several kilometres not too far from the coast. Without knowing the exact depth of the Mediterranean outages, accidental damage from fishing/anchors/dredging is certainly possible there, and highly likely in the shallow Gulf. Four breaks in two separate locations in a single week are rare but hardly impossible, or proof of a conspiracy.

"To paraphrase Henry Kissinger, though, even the paranoid have enemies; there may indeed be something sinister lurking. Even if all the outages occurred in shallow water, that doesn't prove that accidental damage from, e.g., a fishing trawler, was the cause, but merely suggests it was physically possible. Intentional sabotage is, after all, probably more feasibly done in shallow waters than deep, and cable security in shallow waters is only modestly more practical. Clearly, undersea cables are a ripe target for those with an interest in wreaking havoc on international communications, whatever their motivation. Another consideration is that undersea cables have been used for submarine/surface surveillance purposes as far back as World War II, with the cooperation of private industry,” he said.

Walker concluded: “In my view, the most likely outcome of this is that a credible explanation for the coincidence will be presented soon, and a few weeks from now, all will be forgotten.”

Believe what you will. The most significant aspect of this incident is to highlight the critical importance that the internet plays in global trade, even in developing nations such as Egypt.

The fact that a temporary and relatively minor disruption to that service in a pressure-cooker region of the world has produced such an outburst of conspiratorial hand-wringing shows that the internet is well and truly as much a part of international relations and political diplomacy as it is central to the corporate IT strategy.

I’ve just been compiling Computing’s news reviews of 2007 for our web site, looking back at the big stories that made the headlines during the year. With such an overload of articles, how can the past 12 months be best summarised?

Well, to be honest, it’s been something of a case of same old, same old. What have we learned this year? 

The government continues to embarrass itself where technology is concerned, sadly negating all the good work that is increasingly taking place in public sector technology. 

Green issues have leaped to the top of IT managers’ agenda, and rightly so. But really, most of the current advice available is simply common sense, good practice IT operational management. We are still painfully short of genuine vendor-free best practice green computing – although there are a few leading companies that are starting to write the rulebooks. 

IT security is just as much of a pain as it has been, but the law enforcement community seems to be drifting further away from being able to address the concerns of business leaders. The great fear is that e-crime will only be tackled once something really bad takes place to make the authorities act. 

What else? 

There are still skills gaps; the profile of the IT leader continues to change; more work is being outsourced; and offshoring is expanding faster than ever. 

Web 2.0 has become the new internet and e-commerce buzzword; stock market valuations for online companies are becoming very silly again; and broadband is an increasingly important economic driver (so let’s hope we get moving on the next-generation infrastructure). 

All in all, it sounds very much like how you would summarise any other mature, business-critical sector of the

UK

economy. The more things change, the more they stay the same, as the French would say if they translated into English. 

In that light, perhaps the most important story of the year came just this month, with news that the UK IT sector is now the second biggest industry in the country, after financial services, contributing 6.4 per cent of the economy – some £66.5bn. 

Maybe in years to come, we will look back at 2007 as a pivotal time, one when IT continued to grow up and establish itself as central to the UK's international success. Technology is increasingly just a part of business, it flows with and influences our lives every day, and perhaps it is a good thing that as the year ends, we are not looking back on any one trend as a defining influence. 

Just another year for a vital part of the way we live, work and play. 

Merry Christmas from everyone at Computing, and best wishes for a prosperous and incident-free technology new year.