A report in the Wall Street Journal that the Obama administration will be shovelling out $7.2bn for stimulating broadband rollout looks to be another case of the US showing the UK how things should be done.

But, hang on a minute – none of the big US carriers such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast have started to fill out the forms for this cash bonanza.

The reason looks to be the US communications regulator applying a shedload of red tape to the contracts and putting profit-sapping restrictions on network connections built with the funds.

On this side of the pond, UK regulator Ofcom and BT have already shaken on the deal, and allowed BT to make a good “return on its investment” for rolling out optical-fibre connectivity for high-speed, 100Mbit/s-plus connections.

So it looks like a tale of two countries, with the US carriers begging for Ofcoms approach to regulate future government “broadband stimulus”, and BT saying “not in my backyard” to the fiscal strictures being applied to US carriers if they bring their wheelbarrows along for some broadband funds.

As Joe Brown once sang – "What a crazy world we're living in!"

By Dave Bailey

Tomorrow afternoon in a building designed by Scottish neo-classical architect Robert Adam, close to Charing Cross railway station, Lord Carter of Barnes will rise to his feet and deliver the final Digital Britain report.

RSA House is the venue for the report's final disclosure. However, Lord Carter is still working on the implementation plan which will fill in the detail about exactly how all the mission statements will be delivered – the who and when – and hopefully the how much.

I'll be at the event, and I would like to think I'm going to hear something amazing tomorrow, that Carter will blow everybody out of the water with a succession of stunning announcements designed to move the UK's communications infrastructure into the 21st century. So, are we going to get visionary thinking from Lord Carter - or a point release of January's interim Digital Britain report plus small tinkerings at the edge?

The big problem for Carter is that he's hamstrung by the government's aversion to stumping up a serious amount of folding drink vouchers to deliver the proper digital IT infrastructure needed by the UK to compete effectively with our global competitors.

At the last forum organised to discuss Digital Britain, Gordon Brown took the stage and said: "We can't leave this to chance." Unfortunately I suspect that is precisely what will happen after tomorrow's announcement - Brown will be leaving the country at the mercy of Lady Luck, and if his recent luck is anything to go by, that doesn't bode well for the digital future of the UK.

By Dave Bailey

As well as putting meter readers out of work, the government’s plans to install smart meters to remotely monitor every household’s gas and electricity use by 2020 may hit other snags.

Neither Whitehall mandarins nor the utility companies have yet outlined how they plan to pull off this ambitious project, preferring to muse on the potential reduction in the average household’s bills and national carbon footprint.

Smart metering works by replacing existing meters with equivalent devices that are able to transmit data about customer use to a central office via a communications network.

That network can be wired or wireless. Existing schemes use cellular GPRS and SMS communications, for example, which is unlucky for those living in areas with no reliable mobile phone signal.

Network transmission based on Wi-Fi, WiMax and other licensed and unlicensed radio wavebands is being explored, and there are wired alternatives such as analogue modems (dial-up over PSTN), broadband, and power line communication (PLC) where the electricity supply cable carries data.

Electricity supplier First Utility, which says it has already provided smart meters to more than 10,000 households in London, uses PLC, GPRS, SMS, PSTN and low-power radio (pagers).

The suppliers hope that, somehow, every household ­ even if they are halfway up a mountain where no existing phone or broadband operator offers a service ­ will be able to get their smart meter connected to head office one way or another.

The biggest winners are the electricity and gas companies, which get to remove a substantial part of their expenditure on the engineers who currently come out to read our existing meters.

And with so much consumption information at their fingertips, suppliers also get to match supply more closely to generation. So they know in advance when to deliver additional capacity in busy periods, and slow down supply at other times, and negotiate the best wholesale price accordingly.

So far there is nothing to suggest these private firms will be duty bound to pass on opex savings to consumers in the form of lower prices. Even then, only those with smart meters may benefit.

For those in deadspots, the traditional method of billing may continue, effectively creating a two-tier utility pricing system. Those living where smart meters work might get lower-cost power – ­ those who don’t could pay a premium.

By Martin Courtney

Last Friday, Digital Britain supremo Lord Carter unveiled a Digital Rights Agency (DRA) “straw man”, inviting public views as to whether it should be, “torched, tolerated or a touchstone for the start point of constructive debate and design."

The responses should address what role any DRA, “should play in protecting and promoting the legal use of copyright content online, and how industry, consumer groups and government can work together to create an environment where investment in creativity is rewarded,” said Carter.

However, it looks like the two main points in the punt for public comment are: who exactly is going to fund this agency, and who will have the clout to legally enforce any decisions the DRA needs to pronounce on. And does it become an independent industry body with back-up legal powers held by Ofcom? Presumably Lord Carter will pronounce more authoritatively in the final Digital Britain report due in the summer, but this particular “straw man” consultation will end on 30 March.

Coincidentally, anybody watching ITV1 the night before the unveiling of the DRA proposal, would have seen that classic British horror film The Wicker Man, with Edward Woodward’s god-fearing police officer uncovering pagan rituals and other shenanigans on a Scottish Isle while investigating a missing person.

One of the “other shenanigans” involves being tempted by Britt Eckland dancing naked in the room next to the one Woodward is trying to sleep in. I suspect Lord Carter has yet to be similarly tempted, but he should know that Woodward, the government’s official in that film, ends up being burnt alive in a 60 foot high wicker man at the end of the movie.

Lord Carter is unlikely to suffer the same fate, but the proposals for any DRA just might.

By Dave Bailey

When London’s Royal Free hospital admitted that its new medical records system had been failing patients, it came as no surprise to me.

The chief executive of the hospital, Andrew Way, said his staff had been disappointed with the IT system and its implementation had meant a large amount of inefficiency and fewer patients being seen.

I experienced the hospital’s troubles first-hand a few months ago and wrote an article about it at the time, only we chose not to name the hospital then - I did not want to look as though I was abusing my position as a journalist to make a complaint.

But now this is out in the open and the problems have been acknowledged by the hospital boss I thought I’d point out some of the Royal Free’s main problems – based on my experience.

For example, the accident and emergency department is not on the same integrated IT booking system as the rest of the hospital and the different departments that scan patients are not linked up with each other.

A doctor even told me to keep my own records if I wanted the doctors to be informed before they treated me.

It is clear these hospital difficulties have been ongoing so when will these problems be sorted?

Reports leaked out as far back as August 2008 of board level meeting minutes from the Royal Free indicating the June rol-out of the Cerner Millennium Care Records Service was not going well and appointments and records were being lost in the system.

The Cerner software was being installed by BT, which in 2003 won a £993m contract to build a care records system throughout the NHS, also known as the NHS Spine.

The minutes discussed the possibility of legal action against BT. A spokesman from BT Health said no action has yet been taken and when I wrote my column in November the Royal Free said it was too early to comment on what might happen, but that as a result of technical difficulties with the Cerner system, a programme was being set up with its local service provider BT, Cerner, and the London Programme for Information Technology to address the issues.

“While not all technical problems have been resolved, the programme to address these issues is progressing,” said a hospital spokeswoman in an email.

It is now clear this programme did not progress quickly enough.

By Rosalie Marshall

David Cameron's recent statement on fibre-optic broadband as part of a speech he made on Monday may seem as though it differentiates the Conservatives from the Labour Party in its approach to next-generation broadband rollout. It doesn't.

Labour isn't advocating a massive state-funded rollout of fibre-optic broadband connectivity to people's homes – and neither are the Conservatives. Ironically, this is one thing both parties seem to agree on.

"I am not talking about massive state-financed investment - that would be extremely expensive for the taxpayer and it would also risk stifling the innovation that comes from private sector competition," said Cameron, a statement perfectly in alignment with what Labour proposed through the Caio report, and what Ofcom has been saying all along.

You have to laugh at the “private sector competition” part of the speech though. Remember it was the “Chingford skinhead” himself – Norman Tebbit - at the time Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who was chiefly involved in privatising BT.

Had Tebbit separated BT from its exchanges, thereby introducing proper competition into the market, then maybe the fibre-optic network both Conservative and Labour are hoping will be rolled out by the private sector, would already be here.

What about global competition? Well, "when it comes to investing in next-generation broadband networks, we're doing very badly compared to countries like Germany, Japan and America," Cameron informed us. Actually, compared to Latvia and Estonia – we're doing very badly. These countries are trendsetters compared to the UK – having a massive 0.99 per cent of their population connected fibre-optically!

As a by-product of a rush into fibre-optic broadband, we would be spared Samuel L. Jackson - or Master Windu as he's known to Star Wars fans - continually informing us of Virgin Media's fibre-optic “Mother of all broadband” - which is actually delivered into your house from the street cabinet over co-axial cable and not fibre-optically

Let's take a waltz through central government.

It's great to see IT issues being taken seriously in Whitehall – or not. Ministerial responsibility for IT has been split three ways by new business secretary Peter Mandelson - between Stephen Carter, Ian Pearson and Pat Mcfadden within the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) as part of the latest Cabinet reshuffle.

Broadly Carter is covering IT services and ISPs, Ian Pearson looks after WEEE compliance and Pat Mcfadden is responsible for transformational government, according to the BERR press release.

Interesting to see BERR has taken responsibility for transformational government – a huge project that will see government sharing systems and moving its services online.

Except - according to the Cabinet Office - they haven't. "Tom Watson is still minister for transformational government and responsibilities for the programme remains within the Cabinet Office," said a spokesman.

So what's Mcfadden got to do with it? Nobody within BERR seems to know. "We're still outlining briefs," said a spokesman.

It doesn't help that to get the direct line of Pat Mcfadden's press officer, the BERR web site tells me I have to refer to the IPO Whitebook.

The Central Office of Information tells me I can get a copy of the Whitebook/IPO directory by writing to: The White Book, PO Box 2004, Burgess Hill, West Sussex. RH15 8WU.

Except it’s only published twice a year, so by the time I get hold of it most of the numbers – let alone ministerial responsibilities - will be out of date.

Oh yes, and I have to send them a cheque for £20. To get the phone number of someone whose wages we (the taxpayer) pay so I can find out what someone else whose wages we (the taxpayer) pay is actually being paid to do (by us).

So far, so transparent. Let's look closer at Pearson's brief.

He's responsible for "waste electrical and electronic equipment issues".

So that's compliance with the WEEE directive then. Which was previously the responsibility of the Environment Agency, a Non-Departmental Public Body of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Except according to the Environment Agency it still is their responsibility. Them and local councils.

Defra itself is being split as part of the same reshuffle, with the "environment" part going to the Department of Energy and Climate Change along with responsibilities for energy, which came from BERR, bringing us nicely full circle. Although Defra will still be responsible for "adaptation" to climate change. Obviously.

It's enough to make the most hard-core socialist turn in desperation to unfettered capitalism. Oh no…not much joy there either.