Posted: 13th May, 2003 By: MarkJ
The UK government will today announce a new "
Get Started" campaign, which, it hopes, will give people a free taste of Internet access and subsequently drive uptake:
The DTI has confirmed that Patricia Hewitt, secretary of state for trade and industry, will launch Get Started today. A DTI spokeswoman explained that the government believed the Internet had a valuable role to play in fighting social inclusion, as it can make it easier for disadvantaged groups to access government services.
There is, though, growing concern both within government and the online industry that the Internet take-up is stalling in the UK. As ZDNet UK reported back in February, growth in Internet take-up by residential customers had slowed sharply over the last year, and has reached a plateau of around 42 percent of the population.The
ZDNet item reports that BT, Microsoft, the BBC and many others will be involved.