Posted on 10/15/2009 6:17:10 PM PDT by Reaganesque
Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications has made 1-megabit broadband Web access a legal right, YLE, the country's national broadcasting company, reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, every person in Finland (a little over 5 million people, according to a 2009 estimate) will have the right of access to a 1Mb broadband connection starting in July. And they may ultimately gain the right to a 100Mb broadband connection.
Just more than a year ago, Finland said it would make a 100Mb broadband connection a legal right by the end of 2015. Wednesday's announcement is considered an intermediate step.
France, one of a few countries that has made Internet access a human right, did so earlier this year. France's Constitutional Council ruled that Internet access is a basic human right. That said, it stopped short of making "broadband access" a legal right. Finland says that it's the first country to make broadband access a legal right.
But Finland's definition of "access" to broadband is a little fuzzy. According to the Helsinki Times when it reported the 100Mb target last year, the Finnish government said that no household "would be farther than 2 kilometers from a connection capable of delivering broadband Internet with a capacity of at least 100 megabits of data a second." It did say, though, that "about 2,000 (households) in far-flung corners of the country" wouldn't be included. Ostensibly, Finland plans to keep that same distribution when its 1Mb broadband access is implemented.
Finland has long been a tech-industry leader that has done a fine job investing in technology, more than many of its European counterparts. It's also home to Nokia, among other tech firms.
Bizarre.
If you get a chance, please stop by the FReepathon thread and give it a bump. If you haven’t donated something yet, please give it some thought...
Thanks!
In the mid and late 80s friends were asking me to set up PCs for their kids of highschool age. At that time I was wondering how the hell anybody could deal with teaching beyond that point inasmuch as an assignment which might represent 72 hours of work for most of the kids in a class would represent an hour and a half’s worth for the two or three kids who had computers and word processors. Internet access compounds the problem. I don’t know what the exact answer is but it simply cannot be having a totally two-tiered society with no hope of ever catching up for those in the tier without access to this stuff.
You compare the productivity of PC’s vs. non-PC household’s children’s speed of academic productivity and work.
I can do the same thing with households with older PC’s that lag like a pregnant hildebeast and dial up vs. fresh off the shelf models with broadband. Then to top it off you are correct, what do we do with having a two-tiered society of information have and have nots.
I am no proponent of government intervention in the free market but we do have universal access fees for telephone service, national electrification was a national triumph and countless heating assistance prgrams do exist. I am beginning to think that the same is needed for internet and perhaps even broadband access.
There is no doubt that there are definitely segments of our government that preys upon the weak, the ignorant and the uninformed. Keeping them off the internet, purposely, exacerbates the problem.
I’m far more likely to support universal broadband access in the fashion we treat utilities than just about any other government proposal.
Fine...and a bottle of good rum is $54.
This country was founded on the notion that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Governments exist (or at least should exist) to protect our God given or natural rights, not to create and/or define them. Once people buy into the idea that they can create their own rights, everything becomes a right.
When every person’s desires and/or wants become their “right”, community, charity, selflessness go flying out the window. Its every man and woman for his or herself. We become a world and community of selfish cry babies whose one and only interest is in securing our own rights regardless of whom it harms. That’s why this matters.
We human beings have a nearly unlimited ability to convince ourselves that what we want is actually something we desperately need. The reasoning becomes: I need to get to work therefore I have the right to a car. And if I have a right to a car, what kind of car, then, is my right to own? Are my rights secured if I get a used VW or do my rights entitle me to an Aston Martin DB9? Or, I need to be able to communicate therefore I have a right to a cellphone. But not just any phone, I want the top of the line IPhone! It’s my right!
So, when wants are inflated to needs and from there, rights, where does it end? Where does personal responsibility enter into the equation? Should personal responsibility have a role in our society? For Liberals, the answer to both questions seems to be: never. Gimme what I want...er...need! No society can last long with such a selfish society. Just ask the Romans.
There are other ways of addressing the issue of connectivity than declaring it to be a fundamental human right. To declare such a trivial matter a human right is to denigrate the notion of human rights entirely.
I reckon that over there, p0rn is a “human right” too and thus they need broadband to download it...
It can get pretty cold at night in Finland...:-)
So, when wants are inflated to needs and from there, rights, where does it end? Where does personal responsibility enter into the equation? Should personal responsibility have a role in our society?
Hear, hear! ;-)
An Internet connection is now what libraries used to be. Heck, the libraries I have been to recently have rows upon rows of Internet connected computers and most of them have school kids seated at them for hours on end. So, why not turn Libraries, Public, School and Private, into Internet access sites? Most already are so, why not make it official?
If you bother to read the article, they are not piping broadband to the homes, just to localities.
Perhaps, but how much access?
Computers in general are producing 'students' that have no idea how or what to study, and have zero math skills.
Anyone anywhere in this country can get Internet service wires or no wires if they really want it.
It isn’t my duty to pay for it.
Parents, not “government” have a responsibility to provide for their children. If you can’t provide for them don’t have them. The world is not fair.
I wouldn’t have posted it if I hadn’t read it. And actually, it says that “no household ‘would be farther than 2 kilometers from a connection capable of delivering broadband Internet’” It also states that the definition of “access” is “fuzzy” given that “connection” isn’t actually defined. So, it could be either localities such as a library or ISPs making this connection available to homes. But, the fact remains that in Finland and France, accessing the Internet is a basic human right and this is sheer madness.
No, we're confusing needs with wants. This is simply more middle-class welfare.
“and this is sheer madness”
Agree! - Its also unattainable.
Our local school system has been issuing a laptop to every student in grades 8 - 12 for a couple of years. And, this week, My 7th grade granddaughter is being issued a brand new laptop.
Next year, every student in middle and high school will have their own computer...
Of course, I am seriously considering switching to cell-based internet access -- to replace the current crappy satellite-based connection I now use for our home wireless network... (Whenever it rains, it s-l-o-w-s down -- and, finally dies...)
FWIW, the rural co-op main AC line that crosses my yard did not exist until the mid-50s. Until then, "coal oil" lamps were standard lighting in rural homes...
There is no telling when (or if) fiber optics will finally make it to us out here in the boonies...
But every kid has a laptop. (And, that is a good thing...)
That would work, but you ‘d likely need to triple or quadruple the computer facilities at many libraries.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.