Starting today (July 1), every Finnish citizen now has a guaranteed legal right to a least a 1Mbps broadband connection, putting it on the same footing as other legal rights in the country such as healthcare and education.
As we reported last year, Finland was the first nation in the world to pass this type of legislation, followed by Spain in November.
The Finish government has promised guaranteed speeds of 100Mbps by 2015 for all of its citizens, and currently about 97% of Finns already have access to broadband connections.
As our @Zee mentioned last year: “the fast growth of technology has led the European Commission to bring forward a review of the basic telecoms services Europeans can expect.”
And as this blog points out:
“This is no mean feat in a geographically challenging region, with a quarter of the country lying above the Arctic Circle. The country has followed the Scandinavian trend of fixed-to-mobile migration, with increasing numbers of citizens choosing to bypass the limitations of fixed-line telecoms and Internet for mobile-only connectivity.”
Finland’s communication minister Suvi Linden told the BBC that, “We considered the role of the internet in Finns everyday life. Internet services are no longer just for entertainment.”
So there you have it, broadband access to the Internet is now officially a legal right in one country at least. Here’s hoping the word spreads.
It is an interesting concept. Is like a universal service obligation? Here we don’t even have the right to running town water or sealed roads.
Yes, as the BBC puts it “all telecommunications companies will be obliged to provide all residents with broadband lines that can run at a minimum 1Mbps speed.”
Now if we only could have some actually working mobile connections (at least in major cities), or speeds exceeding 1.5 Mbps. The nominally 24 or 100 Mbps sounds exciting, but I have yet to see over 1.5 download speeds in a home, despite living in the capital.
It depends on where you’re downloading things from too. My internet speed is 40/2mpbs and just today I was downloading a game from Steam servers peaking at 2.1mbps. A friend of mine managed around 4mbps with his connection, and neither of us live in the heart of a major city.
maybe if we had free broadband the illegals would go home
Yawn.
I wish the same could be said for the US, my DSL service is always cutting out.
You guys should read about the tax code in Finland.
It’s insane!
that’s beyond stupid, especially given that it’s not free, what this “right” really means is this: “You have a right to take someone else money so that you don’t have to pay for something”. You can not have a right to other people’s property, government can only use force to take it and than give it to you.
Beyond stupid? You seem to be catching up to stupid – the gov. pays for it, same as health.
LOL! the government pays for it. yea because the government can just make wealth appear out of thin air. where do you think the government gets the money to pay for all these “rights”
You assume too much
i’m totally fond of this kind of reflexions !!
Hyvä Suomi!
Awesome!
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chris says July 03, 2010
Reply
Beyond stupid? You seem to be catching up to stupid – the gov. pays for it, same as health.
”
funny you call someone stupid.. where do you THINK the govt gets this money from? they get it from people.
so they ARE paying for it, and they ARE paying for heathcare.
they are taxed up the butt for it.
You don’t really seem to get what this right is about. Access to broadband is the right, not getting broadband (for free) itself. Just like having the access to water and electricity is a right, but you still have to pay for it.
pupuk organik : Excellent post. Spot on.
Good Article!!!!!
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Estonia did it in the early 2000′s
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Scandanavia countries are always ahead of the curve.
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People to ponder the good article! ! !
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I hope the US wont follow this! android tablets