Update

My mini campaign – Wifi for care homes and sheltered housing

Today was interesting. I’m presently looking for places to deliver a Computer Club in the New Cross ward to fulfill for local assembly funding. I’ve been communicating with a few council officers in the area and the brilliant Henry Hobson from Community Connections who knew of potential places; I managed to meet with the housing officer of one place, and found again a commercial sheltered housing provider not wanting to deal with the issue of communal access; this led to a conversation about the whys and wherefores of this situation, and ultimately I came to the conclusion that pushing tenants to have their own access is a get out clause which is not good enough. The problems to be had with one client giving access to other tenants in good faith is filled with potential politics, not to mention if that person were to leave.

Why is this the case? I can understand that there is the problem of management, but if an ISP were given the contract, a housing officer would be the person to report faults; most of the time routers need to turned off and on again, and given the general poor quality fo the routers given to homes, a quality third party router would mitigate this.

Let care providers be aware that as the digital default comes in as a cost cutting exercise in public spending, and Digital Champions are being touted as the ‘digital buddies’ to assist those needing help, then there will be more people confident to use services but not able spend the money to buy a phone line just for internet access. A building full of individual phone lines, and all paying line rental. Not fair.

Who is with me? @soulchip1 #wifi4all

Any ideas as to how to continue this campaign? Get in touch