Finland Says 1Mb Broadband Access Is A Legal Right
from the my-rights-are-being-trampled dept
While the US is still struggling to figure out how to define broadband and where it's even available, Finland has decided that 1Mb broadband access should now be considered a legal right, with plans to boost that to 100Mb by the end of 2015. There do appear to be some exceptions for remote households, but if I were living in Finland right now, instead of the heart of Silicon Valley, my "legal rights" would be denied. While I'm not sure it makes sense to define broadband as a legal right, it's yet another reminder of how far behind the US appears to be on broadband deployments.
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Legal right...
My guess would be that declaring internet access to be a legal right would be the first step towards moving access and interaction with the government exclusively online; whether this is intended to enable a government cost-cutting measure across the board, or perhaps as a means to enable more meaningful input into the governmental process is anyone's guess.
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End discussion. sort of like saying broadband is a right in a small neighborhood in Tokyo.
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Are you saying that Piss Poor America is too whiny? Listen man, your head is so far up your ass that you have to open your mouth to see if the sun is rising or setting.
Oh, 5M people. Blah blah. Did you know Karl Rove recently said it's "only 5M people who don't have health insurance".
http://vodpod.com/watch/2141232-karl-rove-really-only-5-million-without-health-insura nce
Oh Poor Finland. It's such a sad story with their polar bears, and solo violins playing in the background, that they had to get internet for everyone.
Bah.
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Guessing you were being sarcastic? Tokyo's population, about 12.8 million. NY's, about 8.4 million.
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Sort of like saying even a small neighborhood in Tokyo can beat the US. A little more meaningful now, isn't it?
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Silicon Valley -- population ~3 million (depends how you count). And broadband is worse here... despite it being more densely populated than Finland.
End discussion.
Not really.
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If someone doesn't want to admit that the US (in particular the companies handling the broadband offerings) is doing a second tier job, no amount of facts or examples that do work will convince them.
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Personally, I find it quite odd that my parents can get a faster internet connection in their house literally in the middle of nowhere.
"Keep driving until the pavement ends, and it's a dirt road" are the directions I give. Last year, during the holidays, I remember going out on the porch around 10:00 and literally hearing nothing but dead silence, until the neighbor's gas meter kick in. I did some investigation, and found the sound to be emanating a neighbor three houses down. My discovery was truly surreal in it's own rite.
I suppose it all comes down to some internal build-out prioritization process, or internal political challenges.
But Sunnyvale.. Redmond? (oops, I didn't mean to let that last one slip.) Man. You make me want to call Sol Trujillo and put him in Dennis Strigl or Randall Stephenson's place.
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And it's my responsibility to fix it for you?
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It's probably not your own "personal" responsibility, but it's quite possible that AT&T does a horrible, horrible job at anything it says it does, unless it gets a fat check from the Government to spy on people. Then everything is funded and seems to work just fine.
Being the "American Telephone and Telegraph" Company, it often seems that they're still stuck in the Telegraph age.
Have you heard about the health plans this Blue Chip stock offers it's employees?
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The government is picking up most of the tab for this network, with the telecom companies paying only a very small amount. The national government is paying more than half the bill (and aggressively freeing up radio spectrum), regional and local governments are picking up a fair bit, the telecoms very little in the end.
The freeing up radio spectrum is key in the game here. Wire the dense areas, provide radio coverage to a speed that is much slower than 3G for the rest. Oh yeah, let's not forget no competition, no alternate carriers, no nothing.
You cannot expect the same governmental intervention in the US because of the sheer volumes of near empty space in the US. Moving to put a 1 meg connection into every home in the US is impractical because of the size of the job at hand. Finland has only 3% of the land mass of the US, and for that matter, is 1/3 the size of California. The scale of the project is a little different, no?
Apples, meet oranges, techdirt style.
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Can't expect the gov't in the US to give the telcos subsidies? What a joke. The gov't in the US has ALREADY given the telco industry HUGE subsidies and stands poised to continue to do so in the future.
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End discussion. sort of like saying broadband is a right in a small neighborhood in Tokyo.
It's not that simple. You have to consider population density as well. On average there are 17 people per square kilometer in Finland. In Lapland, northern part of Finland, population density is 2 people per square kilometer. And in some areas it's only 0.2.
Cable is not going to be the solution for many places. Mobile broadband is a big part of the broadband strategy.
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Finland is mostly a big forest, with tons of lakes. It is sparsely populated and in a smaller population there is less people who pay the taxes and less people working to provide access.
In short: Your comment is uneducated and "endumbening". :D
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Since it is mostly forest, you put up a couple of big radio towers to offer 1meg service to all the forest areas. Now, eliminating almost all of the area of the country, you are looking at nothing more significant than wiring up a single city and a few smaller towns. This isn't exactly rocket science. Remember, a 1 meg connection is only 1/7th the speed of the current 3g 3.5g world. (suppose to be 7.x meg).
So actually, your comments only help to support my point of view. Finland has very little work to do to become wired.
feeling "endumbed" yet?
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while AC does make a rather valid point, he also completely (and so conveniently) sweeps the entire point that the US should NOT be as far behind in broadband penetration as it currently is. especially when there are locations in rather urbanized areas that still can not get a real broadband connection.
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better or worse than shoes?
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Oh Finland! What a lousy socialist wealth-redistributer country!
Ah, but it's only 5 million so it doesn't count.
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Why does every country have to be like every other country? It is like joining the girl scouts and then trying to change them into the boy scouts. If you want the boy scouts then join the boy scouts. Why push your will on others?
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Today, they're needing to be upgraded again, but carriers are dragging their feet, waiting for a Broadband Stimulus or something before they actually spend the money on upgrades.
Its a repeat of the 1990s: "If the Government will pay for it, let's wait and inconvenience customers a few more months and get the gear for free" seems to be the general modis operandi. Meanwhile, carriers still take advantage of the fiber which was layed during the 1990s on the taxpayer's dime, go through multiple mergers, name buildings and sports arenas after their companies and leaders, and still offer a hefty dividend pocket most of the profit.
Great businessplan. Wish I would have seen it coming.
To paraphrase Bush:
Fool me once... You never get fooled again.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble
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http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timo_Mäkelä
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There is another important point being missed here
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USA just can't do it...
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Re: USA just can't do it...
Much of the government support for infrastructure in telecom has been used to run high speed internet to very low population density areas, where it is all but impossible to get service anyway, because most people are too far from the CO or too far to get cable anyway.
When the chance came to change this at least a bit (with the TV bandwidth coming available), the chance was lost. Wireless communications for these areas would be significantly cheaper than running wires to each of these homes, which is what they appear to be mandating in Finland.
The US misses because the US wants to miss. If you don't like your high speed internet service, why not start your own?
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Government granted local and spectral monopolies aren't exactly what I'd call "free market". And in fact, those special privileges that most providers enjoy are pretty much the opposite of treating everyone "equally".
Wireless communications for these areas would be significantly cheaper than running wires to each of these homes, which is what they appear to be mandating in Finland.
Hardly. Equivalent wireless bandwidth costs significantly more than wired.
If you don't like your high speed internet service, why not start your own?
Maybe because violating those gov't granted monopolies I mentioned above could land me in prison and I've heard that it isn't a very nice place. I would invite you to go try out prison on your own though and then let us all know what you think of it.
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It isnt free
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