Knowledge Society in Catalonia

This weekend I've been working in the bincingadget, a first approach to the idea I introduced in my previous post on having standard gadgets for my everymorning worries (bicing, renfe, weather...). At present I'm able to catch the information that I need and put it in an ftp server. The google gadget simply accesses to this information in the web server and shows it. Now I'm planning the step to put it in a dedicated server because I now have to keep the laptop on to execute the updating script.

Today I read this article on the knowledge society in Catalonia. It started setting up the fact that Catalonia, a former engine in software and IT services in Spain, has receded in its leading role. One of the targeted causes are lack of institutional strategy, or even diverging strategy, in the topic. I may agree with the idea but I would add also the high prices in the broadband access and the strong and rigid telecommunications regulation as factors that make a huge impact on it. At present, for a home to have broadband access to the Internet costs around 60 ? per month in Spain. This cost, affordable for middle and middle-high class homes contracting a double and triple play offer, lays quite aside for the 30-40 % of homes with incomes below the mean. Additionally, the ban for public institutions to offer free universal wireless access to the Internet is a hard barrier in order to give local administrations, like the city government and NPO's, the possibility to impulse and give momentum to local initiatives. These two factors may have been taken into account in the analysis of the KIS of any territory or country because the infrastructures are, like is mentioned in the article, the basement where the whole knowledge is build on.