UK Gov Announce 700 GBP Handout To Get Low Income Families Broadband

At the New Labour Party Conference this year there seems to have been an announcement from the Government that did not get much press coverage at the time, except on Radio 5 where I caught it.

The announcement was about plans to give 700 GBP to low income families to get broadband in their homes. This money it was said could be spent on getting a pc of some description as well.

It could be argued that most households these days have a pc of some description in them, even low income households. I would also suggest that a fair number may also have broadband as well.

But the Government has to be applauded for this initiative if it sees the light of day.

700 GBP in this day and age is more than enough to kit a family out and get them online in the digital world.

But I got thinking what would I recommend to these families to spend their money on?

I would start off by suggesting that they purchase one of the sub 300 GBP Windows XP Netbooks. These can be picked up from PC World or Tesco (who are selling one in stores at the moment for 248 GBP).  Basically all a teenager needs to be able to do is do course work, surf the web, and let them use whichever chat client their friends are on. Oops and use Skype to keep their mobile bill down when they are at home. We will cover games in a bit. To do all that you don't need hundreds of pounds of computer. This is why Netbooks are perfect.

On this Netbook I would put OpenOffice, which is Office compatible and free. Along with any of the IM clients they require to chat to their friends.

I would pick up an inkjet printer, you can get decent ones for under fifty pounds these days. Which brings me on to a very non eco friendly tip. When the ink runs out, bin the printer and buy a new printer. It often works out a lot cheaper than buying the new ink cartridges.

On to the gaming side of the equation. With services like Xbox Live, that has to be subscribed to, or the Playstation Network, these are almost social media sites for gamers. But within the budget given I would pick up an Xbox360 for under two hundred pounds. The benefits of using a dedicated games console is that the arms race of having a pc powerful enough to play the latest games is avoided, and the hassle of installation as well.

I do think that this initiative from the Government does miss one important fact. One of the most costly things that a low income family will come across is the cost of repairing a broken system. You can take out insurance from places like PC World, and I would probably recommend that this is done. PC World charge a fortune to repair stuff. Local PC repair folks are just as expensive and charge as if they are plumbers etc. Having astronomical call out fees, and then hourly rates are as equally as bad.

So there you have it, a system at home that should allow the kids to do school work, get on the net, and play games.