It is so easy to get swept up with the positive messages put out around the UK Government's Digital Britain strategy, especially when the Chancellor pulls an investment rabbit from the hat of his latest budget in the form of £750m Strategic Investment Fund to drive innovation and mentioned it alongside the dream of 'universal high-speed broadband to all'. The only real sum committed, however, was the £100m for the Digital Region project, Yorkshire Forward.

While any investment is welcome, it is a small part of what is required to approach the needs outlined in the interim 'Digital Britain' report. These in themselves are only a fraction of what is really required to bring the UK up to the level of it being able to directly compete with neighbouring Western European countries, let alone those in the East, Asia and the Americas which are pushing broadband speeds and access ubiquity much further. This will need more commitment from the likes of BT, Virgin Media, Carphone/Tiscali and other internet service providers, and an incentive for them to invest.

What the Chancellor should be reaching for is 'carrots' not 'rabbits'.

A village in South West Wales, Ferryside, demonstrates in a microcosm the issues for individual consumers, the communications challenges faced by the UK and how sorry the state of the infrastructure really is. It also highlights how far priorities have been misplaced, whether deliberately or through ignorance, and how this then fails to adequately address the basic community needs or does little to encourage investment in services that will add real social and local value. Communities need services and nurture, not simply diversion and entertainment, but these are not always the top of the list.

Ferryside, along with its near neighbour Llanstephan, were the flagship locations for the analogue to digital TV switchover in 2005, with locals being offered free digital set-top boxes as the analogue signals were switched off. This frees up spectrum to sell to other service providers, and provides a few dozen extra channels to everyone instead of the previous four or five—revenue for the government, and entertainment for the people. However, like many rural or semi-rural parts of the UK, even without a recession and the credit crunch, the villages really need a communications infrastructure to support vital community services—jobs, education and care—and not a greater choice of 'reality' TV programmes or shopping channels.

While the entertainment has become digital—although not perfectly as even digital TV coverage is patchy—other communications methods struggle in Ferryside. Mobile phone signals are patchy, with only one operator covering the majority of the village and another's signals only appearing when the phone is held above the edge of a jetty over the river estuary (tides permitting). With either mobile carrier the poor signals and coverage means 3G or mobile broadband is still a distant dream.

Fixed line broadband performance is also typical of many remote communities. No fibre, only copper—old at that. The exchange is offering ADSL, but most subscribers consider 0.5Mb/s to be the best they will get, no matter how close they are. This is way below the goal of Digital Britain's 2Mb/s—and that is hardly a stretch goal, even for minimum national coverage.

So why is faster broadband important, even perhaps a regional imperative, especially when times are financially constrained?

It is vital for digital inclusion, addressing rural poverty and giving communities the tools they need to survive and thrive. All communities form and grow around communications links. At one time it was seaports, rivers and canals, and then railway and motorway networks. The industrial age has given way to the digital age, and communities—for social and commercial reasons—are forming around the new IP networks. Access, capacity and speed if restricted will have serious social and commercial repercussions, and governments around the globe seem to be recognising this.

While remote, Ferryside does at least have a communications legacy from a different industrial past that many in the UK have lost—a railway station. It was built to serve the holiday needs of coal miners from the Welsh valleys and remains as a vital lifeline linking the community to the local major towns of Carmarthen, Swansea and beyond. The UK government has an opportunity to leave a similar digital legacy to future generations in all rural and semi-rural areas as well as the rest of the UK, providing it can keep its investment on the right track. However, its timetable is looking delayed, its signalling is poor and other countries are already pulling away.