1Mb Broadband Access Becomes Legal Right In Finland 875
An anonymous reader writes "Starting next July, every person in Finland will have the right to a one-megabit broadband connection, according to the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Finland is the world's first country to create laws guaranteeing broadband access. The Finnish people are also legally guaranteed a 100Mb broadband connection by the end of 2015."
Meanwhile in America (Score:4, Informative)
Don't they always chant population density as to reason why many people are stuck with dial-up?
Re:Meanwhile in America (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the population in America is generally pretty dense, so we tend to lag behind the rest of the world.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't they always chant population density as to reason why many people are stuck with dial-up?
Its weird that Australia, with 10% the population density as the USA has similar problems. Judging from the complaints from USA people on /. the situation in .au might actually be slightly better.
What about personal choice? (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't they always chant population density as to reason why many people are stuck with dial-up?
While there are indeed areas where cable or DSL isn't available, I think you're seriously underestimating the number of people that use dial-up simply because they don't see the need for broadband, nor the point in paying for it. I think you'd be quite surprised at the number of people that would tell you "Look, I don't want cable. I check email and look at the occasional news website.
Re:Meanwhile in America (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Hey-NY-Times-Broadband-Coverage-Gaps-Are-Not-Hooey-100382 [dslreports.com]
Unless you talking about expensive satellite.
Re:Meanwhile in America (Score:4, Insightful)
Satellite is a high-latency service up to 500 to 900ms one way.
The result is that it's slow/unusable for many types of applications, which can't handle a 1 second round-trip delay.
In other words, it's not "broadband".
You won't be comfortable trying to use VoIP over satellite, and streaming media won't work at all without a stout amount of pre-buffering.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to get technical, broadband/baseband/passband/whatever have nothing to do with speed. And even the common-usage definition says nothing about latency.
Re:Meanwhile in America (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, just like that self-employed guy who can't afford $2200 a month for $5000 deductible health insurance for his family and his wife gets cancer and loses his home. He's not stuck. He could always rob a liquor store or sell one of his kids.
But he does have options ("sniff").
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But actually Internet access in Alaska is surprisingly good. "Uncle Ted" Stevens would routinely sell his Senate vote for telecom money for the state. Cheap date.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should a family living a pretty lower class lifestyle on $70K a year in the San Francisco pay higher taxes or higher broadband rates to get good broadband to a family living like a king on the same $70K in a nice 2500 square foot house on twenty acres in some remote burg?
People are free to move wherever they want in the US and there are consequences -- higher
Wow. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Funny)
From: Finland Telecom Customer Service Manager
Dear Sir,
Your install has been scheduled for next month. Please accept our humble apologies. We are attempting to clear the backlog of new application as soon as possible.
In the meantime, we hope that the strippers we have sent over to your house will serve your needs until your broadband order is complete. Again, please acept our most sincere apologies.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Dear Finland Telecom Customer Service Manager,
No problem. No rush.
Actually, I'm going to be pretty busy over the cumming years so may not be able to let your techs in to do the installation for quite sometime.
I'll call you when I'm available to provide access to the installers.
Thank You
p.s. While it's on my mind, do I just call customer service for replacement if the strippers wear out or break?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This IS the Nordic women we're talking about. I'm sure even a bumbling slashdotter could land something decent.
No honestly, do you guys have fat unattractive girls over there that no one photographs? I swear every picture I've seen taken in Sweden or Finland looks like the hot sorority house on campus.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
> No honestly, do you guys have fat unattractive girls over there that no one photographs?
As an Englishman living in Finland, I have to admit, the women here *are* quite attractive, on the whole.
I certainly can't think of anyone who is all of: fat, unattractive, girl, not photographed, *and* over here.
The beach in summer....wow...just WOW....and, remember, the day lasts until 10 or 11 pm in summer.....we don't need no stinkin broadband, 1Mb or otherwise. Oh, right...the winter...yeah, fair enough.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
They do if enough people get together and agree that they do. Such is called government.
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Insightful)
Way to change the subject there.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's one example. Although I personally think we should get the Government out of the "marriage" business altogether and have civil unions for all couples (hetro and homo). Let the priests dither over what "marriage" is and minimize the governmental involvement in a process which is basically nothing more than an agreement between two consenting adults.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We call them "gays".
All rights are what the majority decides them to be, and always has been. You act like this is unusual.
If the majority, in sufficient numbers, pressed for a new right or repeal of a right via a constitutional amendment, it would happen. That's how it works.
Lucky (Score:4, Interesting)
Lucky them.
Here in NYC, Time Warner just released a 50/5 Mb DOCSIS 3.0 plan... For a whopping cost of $99.95/month.
Re:Lucky (Score:5, Informative)
If that's supposed to be bad, I'm jealous.
Here I get 3mb cable with a 20gb monthly cap for $70 per month, and it's the fastest and highest value I can get for straight internet.
I could get 10mb with no cap from the same company for about $80 per month, but I would also have to buy a cable and phone service package. The total would be around $200 or so per month.
You've got it easy in NYC, and I know there are still some places in my state where you can't get better than dialup speeds, and if you can they are outrageous.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually our internet isn't half bad. Aside from the general problem of the half a second latency geography adds to most connections. We pay a bit more, and we have caps, but for the most part we actually get what we paid for. You don't in the US.
But what does this actually mean? (Score:3, Informative)
The wording is something to the effect of no household being more than 2 kilometres from a high-speed connection. Are we talking about a pipe to the house, or having to line up to use the communal pump and carry your buckets of bits back home with you?
That's for me! But... (Score:5, Funny)
I'll wait to move there until they establish the right to winters that don't drop below zero.
Re:That's for me! But... (Score:5, Funny)
I'll wait to move there until they establish the right to winters that don't drop below zero.
Trust me, they never have fewer than zero winters per year.
-Taylor
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And the temperature during those winters is always above zero. Kelvin.
Re:That's for me! But... (Score:4, Informative)
That might be soon enough. Seems global warming is doing it's job, as last winter and a few before that there was maybe couple of weeks with snow - long gone are the >-20c winter days.
Idle hands (Score:3, Insightful)
Politicians with too much time and not enough to do.
Universal service obligations (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't this just an extension of the universal service obligations commonly associated with telephone, electricity etc.?
Having said that, I don't really see the need for 100 Mbps internet access for everyone - it's expensive to provide, and what very important services does it provide that 1 Mbps won't?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Universal service obligations (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure why you'd think I was trolling, I genuinely believe what I said.
The reasons for such service obligations are that it's becoming increasingly difficult to take part in normal life and society without that service, perhaps because so many important services and information sources are online. If entire areas are unable to access these, it will have a negative effect on the viability of that segment of society.
However, all of these that can be done with 1Mbps, except for the telecommuting that jhol13 mentions below, which I hadn't thought of.
Lapland? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how are they going to guarantee it to reindeer shepherds in the far north of Finland, living in the taiga good 100km away from nearest electric power...
Re:Lapland? (Score:5, Informative)
"about 2,000 (households) in far-flung corners of the country" wouldn't be included.
Finland had it all (Score:3, Insightful)
Finland, Finland, Finland [youtube.com]
The country where I want to be
Pony trekking or camping
Or just watching TV
Finland, Finland, Finland
It's the country for me
You're so near to Russia
So far from Japan
Quite a long way from Cairo
Lots of miles from Vietnam
Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I want to be
Eating breakfast or dinner
Or snack lunch in the hall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all
You're so sadly neglected
And often ignored
A poor second to Belgium
When going abroad
Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I quite want to be
Your mountains so lofty
Your treetops so tall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all
Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I quite want to be
Your mountains so lofty
Your treetops so tall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all
Finland has it all
Where do we sign up in the US?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where do we sign up in the US?! (Score:4, Interesting)
As basic as Postal and Library service (Score:5, Interesting)
In my view, Internet access is more important and powerful than the postal and library services combined. Surely if the government provides those basic services through taxation, a basic Internet communications infrastructure should also.
Right to a broadband connection, minus the content (Score:5, Informative)
What good is the right to a broadband connection if they don't have the right to an unfiltered connection? In case you didn't know, a filter maintained by Finnish police that's supposed to block child pornography also blocks other content, including a website critical of Finland's internet filter:
http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2008-02-18.html [effi.org]
Re:Right to a broadband connection, minus the cont (Score:5, Informative)
It's not free as in beer! (Score:3, Informative)
I would like correct some misunderstandings that several readers seem to have after reading the article title. This does NOT mean that every Finn will be getting a government-financed 1Mbit broadband starting next July (doh..) but rather it's something of an obligation to the government imposed by itself on itself, to provide every single address in Finland (including the extremely rural Northern villages in Lapland) with the readiness to start using a moderate broadband connection by next July. The customers will definitely still have to pay their TelCo of choice a monthly fee for providing the actual service (actually, I personaly just renewed my contract with the Telco for 24 months - I guess they would have said if broadband was going to be a free commodity by next year :).
The assumed logic behind this is, that as more and more of government functions and media are moving from physical media to the Internet, the technical readiness to access the Internet from one's home should be a civil right, just like running water, a telephone line and snail mail delivery. After this, the government can start moving more of its stuff to the Internet (e.g. some tax-money financed television content produced by the national broadcaster is already available only on-line), and they can rest easy that no one will file a complaint that a broadband Internet access is something of a luxury product (like it was in the early 90's), or that the government is giving priority to the South where broadband access was a few years back more abundant.
Of course, in practice 1Mb connections have been available in all urbanized and even less-urbanized areas for several years. I think this law will simply mean that the government will pay the TelCos some subsidies to build the last-mile cable even in the far, rural North, and in the very few Southern villages that are still without 1Mb broadband cables.
This bothers me (Score:4, Insightful)
What bothers me about this isn't the free internet. No, that part is pretty cool. What bothers me is the underlying political philosophy. What is a "right?" When do they start? Who creates them?
According to what Jefferson laid out in the Declaration of Independence, rights are inborn into the nature of each person. They are endowed to everyone by their Creator. The distinction here is critical. Rights are inherent in the nature of the human being and an integral part of human dignity -- they are not given by a government. A government cannot give or abolish rights. A person has rights regardless of what his government says. A government can only protect or infringe them.
(That said, a person can abrogate his own rights through the exercise of criminal activity -- this is why governments can licitly infringe on the rights of criminals by imprisoning them.)
Now, if someone has a right to a broadband connection, that means he has always had this right. All humans in all times and places have always had the right to a broadband connection, because this right is a part of their nature. Now, given the fact that broadband connections have not always existed, it's difficult to see how having a broadband connection is an inherent part of human dignity.
It bothers me that lot of Americans seem a bit fuzzy on the concept of rights and are departing more and more from the Locke-Paine-Jefferson school of thought. Ask any given sample of Americans about the subject, and I'll bet 95% of them would say that rights come from the government. A people who look to their government rather to themselves as a source of their rights is a people cowed by tyranny.
Re:I understand these modern times and all... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many legal rights that you don't need to survive. One of them (in most western countries) is the right to vote. It is a legal right as soon as someone makes a law stating that it is. Simple as that.
Re:I understand these modern times and all... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much a nanny state.
"Yes you are free, free without a doubt. If you do not have the price of a meal you are free to go without." -- George Sawchuck (It's okay if you've never heard of him)
There's a difference between excessive meddling in a citizens life and providing for your citizens.
Re:I understand these modern times and all... (Score:5, Insightful)
Government doesn't provide for citizens. It forces some citizens to provide for others.
Re:I understand these modern times and all... (Score:5, Insightful)
But until the libertarian dream is realized (at least as much wishful thinking as marxist socialism) I'll take public welfare over corporate welfare any day :)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll take public welfare over corporate welfare any day
False choice. Public welfare vs. private welfare is the usual one (private charities are almost always more efficient and effective). But if you insist, FEMA vs. Walmart after Hurricane Katrina.
Re:Libertarianism? (Score:4, Interesting)
Having spent my childhood in communism (brought in with by the soviet tanks), I can tell you that any system that relies on people being good or ethical is utopic.
One of the early communism slogans was "you contribute as much as you can, you gets as much as you require". Everyone was supposed to work for the common good and the state was supposed to divide resources in a sane and logical manner to avoid waste and maximize efficiency. We all know how that turned out - and all because people want to be more equal than the others (as a side-note, Orwell was a genius; you will never appreciate 1984 or Animal Farm the way someone who has lived them will).
Back to libertarianism, it suffers from the same thing: it requires people to have a work ethic and personal responsibility. Some people are like that, but some (many?) are not. They will gladly game the system.
Capitalism (in its broadest sense, let's not get into details) works because it relies on greed. It may be sad, but greed is good motivator...
Re:I understand these modern times and all... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but that distinction is more important than to be included as a side note in brackets. Can you point to a mainstream libertarian who advocates having no working government?
Hang around any libertarian forums, you'll find plenty. NationStates is a good place to start, as libertarian community is fairly strong there.
Libertarians propose "limited" government, not no government.
Libertarianism is a very broad movement, and there are all kinds of people there, including anarcho-capitalists, which make a fairly significant chunk of it. You may dismiss them as "not true libertarians" (and they would similarly dismiss you and other minarchists as not being "free enough"), but it would be just another example of a "no true Scotsman" fallacy.
Oh, by the way - are you, by chance, an Objectivist?
limited safety net (for disabled etc) ... is the mainstream libertarian position
I'm sorry, but I think you're very wrong about it being a mainstream libertarian position. So far, I haven't met a single individual who had self-identified as a libertarian, and considered any - even "limited" - kind of safety net, even just for disabled (I wonder what "etc" would be, by the way?). You're the first. Others always claim that it should be properly handled by private charity.
Heck, let's have a mini-poll here for all Slashdot-reading libertarians who would come by this thread: do you consider a "minimal safety net for disabled" a legitimate government activity?
Re:I understand these modern times and all... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a difference between excessive meddling in a citizens life and providing for your citizens. Government doesn't provide for citizens. It forces some citizens to provide for others.
or you could say, government allows all citizens to provide for each other in an efficient and cost effective manner.
Re:I understand these modern times and all... (Score:4, Informative)
Government doing anything in "efficient and cost effective manner"? What color is the sky on your planet?
Governemt may be the only way to organize some operations that are too costly/not profitable enough for a citizen or corporation to undertake, but unfortunately, it always causes a lot of waste and excessive cost. Bureaucratic overhead can be amazingly high and order of priorities tends to be seriously fucked.
Getting back to Finland... Nowadays the Scandinavian countries have significantly socialist tendencies. It may be shocking to you Americans but the citizens of those countries seem to be quite happy with the way the things are. And they're actually spending the tax money on something useful.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I need air to breathe, food to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to sleep at night.
If you live in Finland you'll probably also want some means of warming your dwelling.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I understand these modern times and all... (Score:4, Interesting)
This allows the government to interact with the population online, without anybody having an excuse of no net access.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps a better question is "Who do they plan to coerce to provide this 'right'?" Internet access doesn't just grow on trees, you know.
I know they're demanding that it be "reasonably priced", not "free", but given that no one has stepped up thus far to offer it at these "reasonable" prices it's fair to conclude that doing so is not cost-effective. That means it has to be subsidized, which means someone--probably a lot of someones--are going to end up forced to pay for services they don't need or want or ev
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I... think this was answered in the article? The giant companies with state-granted monopolies and huge profits which they extract from certain markets are being told that in order for the gravy train to continue that they'll have to give something back to the community.
How was this not clear to you?
Re:I understand these modern times and all... (Score:4, Insightful)
America's Founding Fathers only saw necessary to enumerate the protective rights — they listed the things, the Government is not allowed to do to people. All of them believing in personal responsibility for the famous Pursuit of Happiness, they did not put anything remotely like Right to Shelter [nytimes.com] — a Government obligation to give citizens something other than freedom to mind their own business — into the Document they crafted.
Nor have they approved of Government's benevolence at taxpayer's expense: "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents..." -- said James Madison in reaction to Congress planning to offer Federal money to French refugees.
Finland may feel different — whatever strikes their fancy... From a Progressive's point of view, Finland is far ahead — while we are still debating "the right" to health care, they've declared the right to speedy Internet access. To the Founding Fathers point, that all rot: "When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe," — wrote Thomas Jefferson at about same time...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not a right (Score:5, Insightful)
Rights are always an imposition on someone else. The right to free speech obliges others to tolerate offensive speech. The right to a fair trial obliges others to provide you with one. The right to bear arms (a popular one with people who advocate arguments such as yours) increases the risks of death from gunshot wounds for other people. The right to own property denies others the use of that property.
The question is whether the rights are worth the imposition.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The right to free speech and the right to bear arms are both natural by-products of the right to own property (incl. self-ownership), so there's no point in considering them separately. The "right" to a fair trial isn't really a right at all, but rather a procedure which allows those who follow it to absolve themselves of guilt in the eyes of society should they happen to respond in apparent self-defense to a perceived injury and later discover that their response was unfounded. They're still in the wrong,
Re:Bastards! (Score:4, Funny)
Bastards! I still only have 215 kbit internet!
It's okay, I expect congress will pass similar legislation here in the US next year sometime.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHaha...
(cries)
Re:Bastards! (Score:5, Informative)
Facts please!
Urbanization:
US 82%
Finland 63%
So we're more concentrated in cities.
-----
People density per million square KMs
US 31 million per million square kms.
Finland 15 million per million square kms.
So there are less of them per square km!
-------
So there goes "We all live in the countryside" and "We're more spread out." Per person it's much easier to wire an American than a Fin.
I'll save the cost argument for someone else but 10x seems unlikely and the facts that were easy to check were exactly the opposite of what you claimed, so I don't have a high degree of confidence in the reliability of any claim you make.
Re:Bastards! (Score:5, Informative)
the US is much more regionally diverse (read 'f'ing big and spread out) compared to EU countries so it's much more challenging
I thought this canard was long buried. Here's a reminder.
The population density of Finland (15.6/sq.km) is about half that of the USA (30/sq.km) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density [wikipedia.org]. The population density of Finland is lower than that in 44 of the 50 US states http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population_density [wikipedia.org]. Moreover, the population in Finland is quite dispersed, with very few large centers. Helsinki+Espoo+Vantaa combined just exceed 1 million, Tampere and Turku are each around 0.3 million when their outlying areas are included, Oulu and Jyvaskyla are each around 0.14 million, and Kuopio and Lahti are each around 0.1 million http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Finland_by_population [wikipedia.org].
I live in the countryside in Finland, about 350km north of Helsinki. I have 100/10Mbps fiber to the house, with no capacity limits. So do my "neighbours" (houses are typically separated by a few hundred meters along the road). The ISP has a monopoly, but was required by the municipality to provide a certain level of service in return for having access to its citizens and use of roads etc. to reach them. The ISP is a private company and appears to be profitable.
As far as I can see, the problems in the US are not really with population density or sparsity of population distribution. They would seem to be caused by local/state governments not balancing the interests of their citizens with the interests of ISPs. As a result, some ISPs are granted local monopolies without compensating conditions on quality of service. This allows them to avoid competition and maximize the squeeze on captive customers while providing a shoddy service by minimizing their investment in infrastructure. There are apparently some areas of the US with decent service, but in far too many places, it seems that the customers are being brutalized by the ISPs, while the authorities egg them on.
Re:Bastards! (Score:5, Informative)
This news has been written quite loosely around the news sites - original article (in finnish) [www.hs.fi] states that ISP's must be capable of offering reasonably priced, atleast 1Mb broadband to every house. During this year Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority will state who those ISP's are that must be able to provide the services (probably the largest ones). So it's not free, like many seem to think - just reasonably priced (probably around 20-50e/month)
This part yet is not really that interesting since it's already pretty much common place.
However the law also states that the speed of the line must be atleast 75% of the said one during 24 hour measurement period. And what's more interesting is that by 2015 it will be 100mbit. Even though this is already available in the largest cities, it will mean major infrastructure development from the ISP's in other areas.
Oh and btw, no ISP in Finland has transfer limits or such crap. Not even mobile operators, who offer unlimited 5Mbit 3G for something like 30e/month.
Hopefully this also means that those three-strike laws wont be possible, since getting broadband access should be a legal right.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Seems slashdot didn't like nordic characters - proper link [www.hs.fi]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How about IDN URLs? Example: http://anmälan.museum/ [anm]
If I paste this into Firefox address bar, it works, but clicking the Slashfungarbulated link from this post's preview doesn't.
Conclusion: Slashcode barfs on IDN. Bad Slashcode.
Re:Bastards! (Score:5, Funny)
How about IDN URLs? Example: http://anmälan.museum/ [anm]
If I paste this into Firefox address bar, it works, but clicking the Slashfungarbulated link from this post's preview doesn't.
Conclusion: Slashcode barfs on IDN. Bad Slashcode.
That's because you put an HTML entity in there instead of the real character. The real bug is that Slashcode can't handle true Unicode, which is pathetic. Proof: when I use the fake compose key on my keyboard, I get ä, which is valid unicode but garbage whatever-the-fuck-slashcode-uses.
Scratch that, it's not garbage in this particular incident. So your URL is http://anmälan.museum/ [anm]
WTF Slashcode?! I didn't &-encode that! You are broken!
But this doesn't work: ¥øü å ဠæØñ üß. It's supposed to say, in very weird lettering, "All your charmap are belong to us". AFAICT it is valid unicode, although I'm too stupid to find the yen sign in charmap (it's not under currency symbols, and I'm too lazy to look elsewhere). So apparently SOMEONE partially fixed UTF-8 support behind my back *looks around suspiciously* and then that SOMEONE failed to completely fix it.
I wonder if anyone will wonder how this post is relevant after reading it (oh god^H^H^H FSM, recursion).
Re:Bastards! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not going to try reading Finnish, but I'm guessing this is like many other regulations that granted monopolies have to deal with in European countries. For example here in Norway to get digital TV broadcast rights they had to increase coverage to almost everyone, even if you decided to hide between two mountains. You don't pay the full cost of delivering electricity and phone lines to a remotely located home. Same with mobile broadband, to get the 3G license they had to commit to offering to some areas that couldn't get broadband, I know because it happened near a relative's cabin - there's a few residential houses there and they were setting up mobile broadband for regulation compliance, no way in hell that was profitable.
I know most Americans get mental anguish just thinking about it, but it's not so bad as it sounds. The businesses usually has some form of compensation agreement, or consider it part of paying the license fee except in labor not cash. It's basically the state subsidizing private build-out to areas that otherwise wouldn't get served. Of course that's a redistribution issue, but then you have to look at it along with every other tax, some hitting rural areas more than urban areas and vice versa. The whole angle of considering this some sort of legal right is a bit fishy though, yeah it's an economic requirement to provide service but there's still lots of reasons they can kick you off like non-payment, violating the terms of service or whatever. But it's still a pretty big step.
Re:Bastards! (Score:4, Insightful)
Secondly, its not that ISPs have done everything on their own and the free market should take its course. We, the taxpayers have (without a direct vote mind you) given them -billions- of dollars to spend on expanding their services, their lines run through public and private ground not owned by the ISP themselves, I think when its -our- money that they spend, we should be able to tell them what to do with it. If they didn't take any of the money directly or indirectly and own the land that their lines pass through, sure, let them do what they want, but no major ISP has done that.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, the one, most dense city on the planet should get everything, and the rest of us should be left out because we aren't providing the most rewarding cost/profit scenario for the utilities?
Even New York, NY can't compare with the population density of several Asian cities. Oh well, no running water for you... Move to a real city if you want service!
In fact, the difference between ISPs fall
Re:Bastards! (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Citizen,
People feeding you are living in the middle of nowhere.
Just starves retards.
Best regards,
The comity of people living in the middle of nowhere.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, Finland has lower population-density than USA does. So while Finland might be smaller, there are more paying customers in USA. There are other factors to consider besides the size of the country. How about the resources available? If USA had similar amount of resources (money, manpower etc.) available than FInland does, then it might make sense to compare the sizes of the country).
Re:Bastards! (Score:4, Informative)
Considering you could drop finland into alaska and lose it, it would be much larger task to develop that kind of infrastructure in the USA. Not gonna happen soon.
There are exactly 6 U.S. states with lower population density than Finland. Even including these large empty states, the U.S. has double the population density of Finland. The other 44 states have higher population densities than Finland, often much higher. There are also 7 states which each have more than 5 times the population density of Finland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population_density [wikipedia.org].
Moreover, the U.S. is 82% urbanized while Finland is only 63%, so the U.S. population is more concentrated into compact areas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_country [wikipedia.org].
Re:Bastards! (Score:4, Interesting)
Hopefully this also means that those three-strike laws wont be possible, since getting broadband access should be a legal right.
Legal rights and privileges are often conditional on good behavior - and they can be forfeit.
Your "Right to Travel" isn't a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card.
Re:Bastards! (Score:4, Informative)
They don't. All adults have the right to vote, regardless of criminal status (including people in prison at the time of the vote).
Re:Bastards! (Score:5, Funny)
Those backward Finns. They don't realize that this makes them less free. I suppose they have health care for everyone over there and think it's a good thing. I bet people get free education through college in Finland, too. What a shame.
Thank god I live in a country where I'm free to lose my home if my wife or kid gets sick, just as our Founding Fathers intended. Now that's liberty. At least until that horrible President Hussein Osama forces us to have health insurance and we become a pitiful third-world country like Finland.
You can have my overpriced, traffic-shaped, capped DSL when you wrest it from my cold, dead hands.
Oh, and God Bless America.
Re:Bastards! (Score:4, Funny)
You can have my overpriced, traffic-shaped, capped DSL when you wrest it from my cold, dead hands.
Without heathcare reform, that's scheduled for when? Next Tuesday?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I could kiss you for that comment.
The whole thing is crazy. I live in Japan, which is considerably more socialized than the US and... Umm... It's nice. My life is still based on the free market; I can do whatever I want; I can even get really, really wealthy if I so choose/have the opportunity. But my taxes also pay for a lot of great services that come at a fraction of the cost they would if they had to compete.
The US could do all this stuff at the current tax levels, by just slashing the crap out of t
Re:Bastards! (Score:4, Funny)
I know, there's all those Finns and Swedes and Norse trying to sneak across the border into the US to steal our advanced degrees, health care and WiFi.
We Young Republicans call them "icebacks".
Re:You're actually right (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, that's not entirely true. Europeans are voting for more right wing parties, but that's mostly the European population is shifting than anything else. I doubt many Europeans have a problem with the services they receive. What they have a problem with is the services all those foreigners(defined as anyone with a different skin colour) receive.
Europe is having a bit of a difficult time of it at the moment because of a mix of things. For one a few countries let their socialism go a bit too far, beyond reasonable services for everyone and reasonable workers rights into the usual inefficiency and over protection which destroyed most of the US automobile industry a few decades ago. For another, a lot of them suffer from the same problems the US has in that they don't actually make anything that anyone else wants anymore and they're not entirely sure what to do about it. The UK built its entire economy on exporting financial instruments and is currently pretty much screwed.
Whenever things get bad people start getting a bit xenophobic and despite claims about the cosmopolitan nature of Europe, they're as guilty of it as the rest of us.
I live in Australia and we have a fairly reasonable balance between the two(which might be why we've currently got the best performing western economy in the world). There's reasonable protections for workers, but for the most part, employers have rights too(there's a few issues here that need to be fixed, but the previous government instead of trying to fix the problems tried to absolutely dismantle workers rights and got kicked out so it's a bit of a sensitive subject at the moment). We've got excellent public health care, but if you don't want waiting lists or want private rooms or things like that you can pay for private health insurance(in fact if the government feels you should have private health insurance and you don't they'll tax you extra to encourage you to get it). Again it's not perfect, but it works pretty well.
Having the government take care of every aspect of your life doesn't work. It never has and it probably never will. Having the government provide a safety net of basic services so that people who aren't Donald Trump get a second change is a very good thing. Getting basic infrastructure and services provided by an efficient central provider and available equally and fairly to everyone is good as well, not just for individuals, but for businesses small and large. Government infrastructure is the only reason that competing telephone companies and ISPs can exist, and the US is actually better at that at the moment than we are. Sometimes it's best to buy once instead of many times, and since the government is somewhat more beholden to its shareholders(everyone) than most corporations, it's not as bad having them as a single point of service.
Re:You're actually right (Score:5, Informative)
Or, you can turn your life over to a government with the promises of all your needs being taken care of from cradle to grave. All you have to give them is... everything.
"Everything"? I live in Finland, were we are apparently taken care of by the state from cradle to grave. Have we given "everything" to the state? No. Sure, we pay taxes (last time I checked, USA has taxes as well). But I own my home, my car, I'm free to marry whoever I want... How exactly have I given "everything" to the state?
The problem, for admirers of this system such as yourself, anyway, is that Europe itself is starting to question such an arrangement. People are beginning to wonder why they can't have a good medical care system without massive government expenditures.
It's fashionable to bash the healthcare-system. But if I feel that the public health-care does not fit my needs, I'm free to use private services.
They're starting to wonder just why it's necessary to be paying so much in taxes.
We are? In fact, several polls in Finland say that people would be willing to pay more taxes for improved public services.
They're starting to wonder why starting a business has to be a bureaucratic nightmare.
It is? There's plenty of entrepreneurs over here. My mother was one. It does't seem that starting a business is a "bureaucratic nightmare". Anyone who wants to start a business can do so.
And they're starting to vote appropriately
The right-wing parties they are voting at the moment are more or less equivalent to Democrats in USA. Some of them would be left from Democrats.
Re:You're actually right (Score:4, Interesting)
""Thank god I live in a country where I'm free to lose my home if my wife or kid gets sick, just as our Founding Fathers intended."
You say that in a mocking way, but you're actually right. Freedom includes the risk of losing as well as the possibility of winning.
Or, you can turn your life over to a government with the promises of all your needs being taken care of from cradle to grave. All you have to give them is... everything.
Ok, either you're trolling or smoking something you shouldn't smoke. Anyway, I'll bite. You apparently claim that someone else paying your medical bill restricts your freedom. Please, explain how. You realise, don't you, that nobody will force medical care upon you, unless you're seriously mentally ill. You're also free to pay the bill yourself, if you want to.
The problem, for admirers of this system such as yourself, anyway, is that Europe itself is starting to question such an arrangement. People are beginning to wonder why they can't have a good medical care system without massive government expenditures. They're starting to wonder just why it's necessary to be paying so much in taxes. They're starting to wonder why starting a business has to be a bureaucratic nightmare. And they're starting to vote appropriately.
You're making this up as you go, aren't you? Firstly, please explain which "bureaucratic nightmare" you're referring to. You can't, because you just made it up, or you got it from Fox "news". Secondly, it may be true that conservative parties get more votes now than twenty years ago, but guess what! They all agree that American healthcare is a disaster and should be avoided like the plague. Oh and one more thing. Please don't refer to Europe one country. There are tens of countries in Europe, all with their own legislation, bureaucracies and healthcare systems. They have one thing in common though, all have better healthcare systems than the US does.
Demonstrably Untrue (Score:4, Informative)
America is the only 1st World country where filing for bankruptcies for unpaid medical expenses exists.
Canada, they of the Great-White-Northern single payer system, has a substantial medical bankruptcy rate [ic.gc.ca]. It's less prevalent in Europe (though it still exists there too) but only because they have an even bigger social welfare state.
The majority of medical bankruptcies come not from lack of insurance, but from long illnesses that result in lack of income.
Safety Net? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Maybe a the ultra successful should provide a safety net for the ones who lose."
Welfare? Food Stamps? Medicaid? Public housing?
The poor get all of those. We have a safety net. So are you arguing for a safety net, or are you arguing that government should give people a living?
Re:You're actually right (Score:5, Insightful)
The right to freedom of speech. For one person to have freedom of speech requires that others refrain from violating it. For example, I can say what I wish, when I wish, and the only requirement imposed upon others is to refrain from stopping me and thus violating that right. The same obligations then extend from me to others. This is a negative right as it requires others to refrain from acting in violation of that right.
The right to broadband. For one person to have this right requires that someone else provide it. This is a positive right as it requires one person/group to act to provide for another (same applies to healthcare "rights", education "rights", etc).
The essential feature here is reciprocity. Negative rights naturally extend to everyone (if person A must refrain from violating the rights of person B, person B must refrain from violating the rights of person A. Otherwise you must assume that one person is "superior", i.e. has more rights, than another), while positive rights are one-sided (one person's "right" to healthcare imposes an obligation on someone else to provide it). The assumption of equality involves assuming that all have the same rights. Presuming that one person has more or different rights than another presupposes that those persons have different worth, and if you start making that assumption, the idea of natural, inalienable rights flies out the window in favor of arbitrary rights determined by an arbitrary group of people based on arbitrary standards. You can't have rights for some at the expense of others. In the case of broadband (or healthcare, or education, etc.), everyone has the same right to work to acquire the resources need to gain access to broadband (or healthcare, or education, etc.). Any other concept imposes positive rights, i.e. rights for some at the expense of others.
Let's analyze this based on what we've learned. You're implying that because he's hungry, this individual has been deprived of his right to food. If he has a right to food, then someone else has a duty to provide it, which means that the provider is a second-class citizen, a slave to anyone who can't provide for themselves. Because he's homeless, someone has violated his right to have a home. Same situation, the provider of the home is reduced to involuntary servitude (slavery), forced to utilize their skills and resources to provide for someone who can't/won't work to provide for themselves. Because he's sick and dying, he has been deprived of his right to medical care. This means that his doctor is his slave, and has to be forced to utilize his knowledge and resources to provide for him.
I'm not saying that if a doctor sees a sick or injured person that they shouldn't attempt to help them. I'm saying that he has no moral obligation to help them. I'm not saying that giving to a charity that helps provide shelter or job training to the homeless is immoral. I'm saying that requiring a person or group to provide for the homeless against their will is immoral.
Re:You're actually right (Score:5, Insightful)
You're confusing (or are perhaps unaware of) positive and negative "rights"...
No, I'm not the least bit confused. If anything it is you who are confused, or worse... you are deliberately presenting a false argument.
This means that his doctor is his slave, and has to be forced to utilize his knowledge and resources to provide for him.
The moment you break out the term "slave" you lose ALL credibility whatsoever. The doctor is not his slave in any rational sense.
The doctor doesn't have to show up for work. The doctor doesn't even have to be a doctor. The doctor is not a slave. If he doesn't feel like caring for patients he can quit any time he likes.
The ONLY actual forced imposition on anyone is the taxation used to fund these programs. And sure, you can wave your arms all you like about how your a "slave" in your own country because they make you participate in funding the maintenance of the military too, and the police, and the fire department, and water/sewage, and public schools, and highways, and so on... but I'm not having any of it.
I refuse to be drawn into a debate with any idiot who thinks even the basic trappings of society amount to slavery.
They aren't slavery any more than hiring a contractor to do your kitchen is slavery. The fact that he now has an obligation to you doesn't make him a slave. Participating in a society is a social contract, with obligations to maintain and improve that society. That's not slavery.
Its a hyperbolic misapplication of the word to the point of absurdity.
Re:You're actually right (Score:4, Interesting)
The idea of negative and positive liberty is not universally accepted, and in fact contains very deep flaws.
Firstly, negative liberty requires enforcement, and that enforcement is not free. Everyone pays taxes for a policeman to protect their property, but clearly the millionaire with his mansions gets more out of that arrangement than the minimum wage stiff living in a rented flat. So what appears to be a negative liberty is in fact identical to a positive one. You can do this for literally any 'negative' liberty.
If you want a more detailed look at the failure of 'negative liberty' to live up to its ideals, I can recommend 'The Trap', a series of three documentary films by Adam Curtis. Seeing as AFAIK it has never been released on DVD, you can torrent it with a clear conscience.
Re:You're actually right (Score:5, Insightful)
Most US welfare recipients get off welfare within 1 year.
But according to some, we have a huge "welfare state".
I'm telling you, there's something in the water here that's making 30 percent of Americans complete morons. Or maybe it's something being broadcast over the airwaves.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Once you've found the time to RTFA you might also want to read up on the differences between legal rights and natural rights. Also might want to throw social rights in there as well, if you believe in those sorts of things.
It really is good to know from where your various rights descend.
Re:This is crazy (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I really don't see why anyone would have assumed it was about free broadband for everyone.
It's the Libertardians who believe that anything a European has that they don't have must be provided by the evil, socialist government at gunpoint.
On another note, does anyone read this as a giant "Haista vittu and the m00se you rode in on!" to the **AA and their attempts to push the "three strikes" laws?
If something is a legal right, I imagine it would take (at the very least) conviction criminal court before it could be denied to you.
Re:This is crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand basic inalienable rights like food, shelter, clothing, and adequate healthcare. But a right to have internet access?
The way I see it is that if you take your list of inalienable rights and classify them as "human rights", you can classify health care, internet access, etc. as "societal rights" (those rights granted by the state for their citizens).
internet access being a right is an example of liberalism gone horribly wrong
Do you mean liberalism as defined by the various political parties and interest groups in the US, or Liberalism, generally? Either way, I don't think that term is useful or productive, especially when the context here is Finland.
In the US, the crowds shout "We insist on being free so don't dare try and give us any stuff", while in Europe, it's "Keep giving us free stuff or we'll bring you down!" Left-wing? Perhaps. But I suspect one side is getting a good deal, while the other ... well, what's the state of broadband in the US? ;-)
Re:This is crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been pretty amazing over the last few months watching Americans demand that the government NOT guarantee them affordable health care.
Re:This is crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Then there are people like me, who believe that healthcare should be made available to people who are poor or have pre-existing conditions, but believe that the current plans will make things worse rather than better. I'm even willing to pay higher taxes to help cover these people, but the current plan doesn't explain how it will be paid for, among other problems.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While your second argument, that current plans are good in principle but bad in execution, might well be true, it certainly appears that a large number of Americans are opposed to health care reform simply because "government == bad."
Yeah, and obviously the government programs can work if they are set up right, but Obama hasn't made this argument. He hasn't even come close. If he did, then healthcare reform would be a lot more popular.
Yet many (most?) of the world's government health care programs are cheaper and are consistently rated as providing better care than the current US system.
OK, you're conflating two issues here, the first is, why is US healthcare so expensive? and the second
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets hope you stay living in the US of A then.
Second that. People who come from disadvantaged families who want post-highschool education should have the opportunity to get it and not just be told "no, you've got to take and bare some responsibility on your own life".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Right? (Score:5, Informative)
So this new right is just yet another form of redistribution of the fruits of productive labor, and more Nanny Statism. Of course. And when you make getting the use of a dermatologist or an allergist a "right," this is exactly the sort of thing that comes next.
Here in Europe we like that kind of thing, YMMV.
You're mincing words for reasons of political bias (Score:3, Interesting)
Is equal access to roads a right? How about waterways? Electricity? Water?
The internet is just the newest form of a utility. It's an information network that has become completely necessary to anyone in the modern world, just as telephones and televisions were before it.
When you guarantee that everyone has access to something, the costs per person go down. Way down. Because on many levels, socialization works very, very well, especially where infrastructure is concerned. Businesses have access to larger mar
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No. That's why there are taxes on the fuel you burn when you use those roads. That's why there are toll roads. That's why some roads are paid for by the business that needs it to be paved into their warehouse area or housing development. That's why there are substantial fees in some places to get a license to drive or to renew the registration on the vehicle you'll use on those roads. Don't want to pay those costs? You don't have to. And you don't get to use the roads.
Re:Great! But... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course. But neither one of them are free.