INTERNET PROMOTION: CALL FOR MORE REALISTIC MEASURES.

The British Chambers of Commerce suggest that more effort should instead be directed into ensuring that the companies that are online offer world class e-business services, with help from the government in the form of capital allowances for the firms' investment in appropriate hardware and software. The call is based on research available to the BCC indicating that the level of SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) online has reached a plateau at around 500,000. The target of 1 million small firms online by 2002 in the United Kingdom is being overseen by Britain's e-commerce Minister, Douglas Alexander.The Spanish government meanwhile announced on 15 November that its Information society programme will have a Euro 499 million budget in 2002, with an additional Euro 49 million added to help, among other objectives, spread telecommunications services to rural areas. The country's telecommunications regulator, the Commission for telecommunications markets, helped to bring another key element of the Information society closer on 16 November when it introduced a series of measures which will make the unbundling of the country's local loop...