New EU Rules Promise 100Mbps Broadband and Free Wi-Fi For All (arstechnica.com) 180
An anonymous reader writes: The European Commission has promised free Wi-Fi in every town, village, and city in the European Union, in the next four years. A new grant, with a total budget of 120 million euro, will allow public authorities to purchase state-of-the art equipment, for example a local wireless access point. If approved by the the European Parliament and national ministers the cash could be available before the end of next year. The commission has also set a target for all European households to have access to download speeds of at least 100Mbps by 2025, and has redefined Internet access as a so-called universal service, while removing obligations for old universal services such as payphones. It also envisions fully deploying 5G, the fifth generation of mobile communication systems, across the European Union by 2025. Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker made reference to many of these proposals while also promising to abolish roaming once and for all in his "State of the European Union" address on Wednesday morning.
who pays? (Score:2)
So, since this is not communist Russia.. who's paying for this?
Re:who pays? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:who pays? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I don't understand is: only 120 M Euro? That's 20 cents per person so it's easy on taxpayers but is it enough to buy and operate the infrastructure?
You are making the assumption that this is a well thought out and feasible plan, which it very well may not be.
If it were really that cheap and easy to do I would expect that some company would have already done so and charged everyone a few Euro for the service because if it's cost effective at an order of magnitude less cost, the profit margins would be obscene.
I suspect that important details have been overlooked which add significant cost to the project, or the person who initially proposed the idea has no idea what this should actually cost to implement.
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They have, it's called cellular data services (LTE). In Europe it would be Vodafone, Telekom, Orange, etc. Sure, the frequency and protocol is slightly different than 802.11 WiFi, but it is wireless, it is already everywhere, it already works, you can surf web pages on your phone or tablet wirelessly TODAY, and the data rates are a usable 50 Mbits/sec now and th
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The size of the congestion block. In either case, the speed plummets if too many people are using it, but with Wi-Fi, you fix it by running a new fiber up to two hundred feet (twice the maximum radius, give or take) and adding a $100 access point; with LTE, you fix it by running a new fiber up to 28 km (or 200 km, depending on preamble format) and adding a new tower for orders of magnitude more than that.
It would be an interesting thought experiment to ca
Re:who pays? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: who pays? (Score:5, Funny)
UK? Sorry, no more EU goodies for you.
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The 120 Million is for the wifi hotspots - the 100Mbps download speed will be a mandated requirement of all telecoma companys, and mandates requirements are free, the coat is borne by the telecoms company and its customers, but the EU commission gets the credit.
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What I don't understand is: only 120 M Euro? That's 20 cents per person so it's easy on taxpayers but is it enough to buy and operate the infrastructure?
You need to look at it like this: Who gets the 120M?
Juncker could never get the 120 Billion Euro that would be needed to do it properly, so had to compromise. Someone still benefits.
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Furthermore with 100 Mb/s everywhere I could start thinking to move into the countryside.
You think every single person will have a full 100 Mb/s bandwidth available? Nothing shared?
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why try? (Score:2)
if the EU keeps getting snotty about who uses and who provides, it's going to be 100MBPS of nothing, as opportunities will pass them by.
users... USERS... own The Connected Internet. they determine what it's good for. not pinheaded government suits meeting at costly offsites 4 or 6 times a year.
Re: who pays? (Score:5, Insightful)
The people, through taxes, most likely. And they will be happy to do it, because Europeans do not see taxes as some evil boogeyman, but rather as a necessity to enjoy a good standard of living and not have to worry about bankrupting the entire family should they ever get cancer or if they want to send their kids to university.
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Wouldn't it be the people, through debt? Many Europeans like the social services without all of the nasty tax paying business, just like their American counterparts. The difference is in the US we just print a bunch of money and pay through inflation instead of via taxes. Can't do that in the EU.
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The EU has the Stability and Growth pact, which places strict limits on the deficit and debt that member governments can accrue, so governments can't just go crazy running up debt.
However that's not relevant here; this 120 million euro fund comes out of the EU budget, so it's already paid for, and doesn't require additional revenue to be raised by member states. Each EU member state pays a certain amount to the EU, and the EU decides how to spend that money, so if it decides to spend some of it on this quit
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And in this particular case, 120 million is a laughable amount toward the goal. Maybe you could wire up a large township outside of a city for this.
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120million for wifi equipment is actually quite a lot. The 100Mb/s internet connections are not funded by this.
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That would help the math, but it still doesn't work out very well. Spitballing here. You can probably, in bulk, cover around 750 users for $10,000 in capital costs in a densely populated area - assuming an existing upstream connection. This money would cover 9 million users. That's a lot - enough to do a single metro area. And this is directed at rural areas, so the impact should be more significant. Unfortunately, the $10,000 will probably skyrocket in those areas because the access points will be more spr
Re: who pays? (Score:4, Interesting)
yes and they never have banking crisis nor impending ones say in Italy and Germany, it's all wonderful.
need I remind everyone the U.S. federal reserve has bailed out the european banking system a few years ago?
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need I remind everyone the U.S. federal reserve has bailed out the european banking system a few years ago?
What is yond nonsense thou art spewing f'rth?
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just fact of the the events in 2010
Re: who pays? (Score:4, Interesting)
... because Europeans do not see taxes as some evil boogeyman, but rather as a necessity to enjoy a good standard of living and not have to worry about bankrupting the entire family should they ever get cancer or if they want to send their kids to university.
And all Europeans think exactly alike too... And all of them love taxes!
Re: who pays? (Score:1)
Oh, plenty of them complain. But they definitely do not turn down the services they take for granted thanks to half of their paycheck going to taxes.
In my experience, Europeans complain more than Americans. But they complain about really stupid things because they see the grass as greener on the other side and they do not realize how good they have it until they have actually lived in the US or some other perceived paradise.
On the other hand, Americans are convinced that they have it the best, while in real
Re: who pays? (Score:2)
Half? In the UK it's a third for someone in the middle.
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Can't you read - it is *free*!
Money grows on trees in the EU!
Re:who pays? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:who pays? (Score:5, Insightful)
Taxes don't fund billionaires in EU (Score:5, Interesting)
Although it's obviously untrue that EU politicians are not corrupt, it's a different form of corruption to the US one. The corruption in the EU is a power grab, while in the US it is a money grab.
That's why the US has such shitty public services. Massive amounts of US taxation end up going into the US military industrial complex, not only funding widespread death and destruction abroad but also lining the pockets of billionaires, instead of building a better country for US taxpayers.
The EU is corrupt too, but money for public welfare and national infrastructure is to a degree ringfenced and open to inspection. It's not a perfect system but it does keep most of the money where it belongs, paid by the people and used for the people, not to fund billionaires.
Alas we occasionally listen to the americans and help them fight their wars and pay into their war machine, but it tends not to last long because waging war has almost zero support among citizens of EU nations. We've had too much experience with war in the past, and have no love of it. It's really quite different to the outlook in the US.
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Once you grab the power, then you can grab the money...
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Just curious. Whatever makes you think that YOUR government isn't corrupt?
Seriously, most of the people I've met (US, Euro, Middle Eastern, farther eastern, whatever) seem to believe that corruption is pretty much normal in every government...except their government, of course.
Oh, and as to "have you even visited Europe?", lived there for eight or nine years. Didn't see much to suggest that European governments were paragons of virtue, really.
Re:who pays? (Score:5, Informative)
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The US should remove all military from Europe and announce that they are no longer protecting any Europe bound or originating shipping lanes.
It would be great if US would do it. Europe could finally grow up and stop being an US lapdog :)
Vladimir is that you ?
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Honestly, if the USA ever gets into a serious war where it's survival is at state, I wouldn't count on the Europeans to help in the slightest....they are part of NATO, but don't even meet the minimum obligations for membership (2% of budget for military) nor do they have much of a recent record for sending more than token forces to help allies (and, then, only if they're promised that their is little risk to their soldiers).
Economics wise, the European Union and China are both trying to replace the United S
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parent post deserves mod points.
Civilized (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like a good idea. Shame that the US is going to fall further behind on this front.
Re:Civilized (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Civilized (Score:5, Insightful)
And 10% will still be barely faster than dialup, so by 2025, 10% of us—probably the poorest people who can least afford to pay for the infrastructure improvements to bring their speeds up to snuff—will be 1000x behind.
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Poor people live in urban areas. Urban areas have fast broadband because it's easy and cheaper per residence to run more lines in high density population zones. It's farmers who have slow internet because they live in the boonies.
You don't have a clue, do you?
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Your first sentence is factually incorrect, and the implication of the second one—that poor people in urban areas have access to fast broadband—is also frequently factually incorrect.
First, for at least the past several decades, the percentage of people living in poverty in non-urban areas has been higher than in urban areas. There are s
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The USA currently lags behind the EU in connection speeds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds
The EU is planning to increase speeds. Do you really think the US will suddenly be 10x ahead of the EU? Through the limitless power of wishful thinking perhaps?
USA won't beat the EU until the last-mile monopoly is broken.
I simply can't understand... (Score:2)
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I haven't seen it increase significantly in the last 10 years in any but the most densely-populated metropolitan centers. Slightly smaller urban areas (not to mention anything rural) have been completely ignored. The only places in the US this is not true are those rich enough to fight monopolies and install municipal networks. The US having /average/ Gb+ speeds in 10 years is a joke.
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Yeah because a government funded initiative to provide coverage to those that companies forget means instantly stopping all work by companies who were rolling out internet previously.
Why is it always all or nothing with you USA guys? You seem to think socialised medicare prevents you from choosing your doctor, socialised internet prevents your ISP from raping you in the wallet to provide you incrementally faster service, and that 100% of fuel taxes solely funds roads. ... Oh wait I've seen the sad state of
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And a huge amount of the EU is already beyond 100Mbps, this is just to catch up their equivalent of the 10% behind.
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So it's more important to spend millions of dollars getting high speed internet to some cabin in the mountains for a hermit who doesn't even want it, than to provide higher speed for 1000 people in an urban area?
That's just plain stupid. You're a Democrat, aren't you.
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So it's more important to spend millions of dollars getting high speed internet to some cabin in the mountains for a hermit who doesn't even want it, than to provide higher speed for 1000 people in an urban area?
That's just plain stupid. You're a Democrat, aren't you.
We hermits want it you elitist motherfucker.
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how can it be a good idea with a measly 120M euro ? that won't provide wifi to the towns of one country, let alone the EU. Do you have a magic EU Jeebzuz that breaks and multiplies euro coins like fish and loaves? what a load of bullshit
Backwards (Re:Civilized) (Score:2)
Actually, the US is way ahead of Europe on this — we tried "municipal WiFi" 15 years ago. Predictably [slashdot.org], it failed [slashdot.org] nation [slashdot.org] fooking [slashdot.org] wide [slashdot.org].
For this USSR-escapee, it is simply mind-boggling, how many people continue to not see, that Socialism=Fail...
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No, we didn't. There was a concerted effort to prevent municipal WiFi. Based on using both state government to preempt municipal WiFI (its illegal in most states), and I've seen it in a bunch of places. It seems immensely popular once done.
People who got out of the USSR don't seem to get moderation. Governments shouldn't run sneaker factories. But there are plenty of things (e.g. roads) that work well when run by government. There's no real reason to assume without more justification that anything fa
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Citations, please...
WiFi is not illegal explicitly. Provision of non-government-specific services by the government is prohibited in some places. Which makes perfect sense — because the prospect of competing with the town hall [urbandictionary.com] is the kiss of death for an honest business-plan. But even where it was not prohibited — such as Chicago — it still fel [slashdot.org]
Re: Civilized (Score:2, Informative)
It's quite astonishing that spastics haven't worked out that every fucking cunt knows free means free at the point of use, no cunt in the whole of fucking Europe is labouring under any other understanding
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We all know what "free" means. You are picking one particular definition and pretending that's the only definition. "Free" means all kinds of things, including having no price to use something.
Re:Civilized (Score:5, Insightful)
the government has no reason or motivation to control the overhead
What on earth gave you that idea? Governments have been cutting funding for all manner of things over the past decade. Oh, and government income comes from taxation, which is related to the state of the economy and improving broadband access has so far led to increases in tax revenue everywhere that it's been measured.
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Countries are literally paying negative interest rates on the money they borrow. Paying off any debt right now is retarded.
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Oh capital idea. Free wi0fi, 1gig speeds, unlimited rice pudding!
It is quite astonishing that erstwhile intelligent people still believe in the concept of "free". You will pay and pay heavily, because the government has no reason or motivation to control the overhead.
Yes, it's like that with the National Health Service in the UK.
Oh, sorry, my bad -- the UK government does a VASTLY better job controlling the overhead than does the US free market.
Re: Civilized (Score:1)
18 weeks for non-emergencies.
"You have the legal right to start your non-emergency NHS consultant-led treatment within a maximum of 18 weeks from referral."
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Way under-budgeted (Score:5, Insightful)
I appreciate the sentiment, but 120 million euro is way, waaaaay too little for a project of that scale.
Personally, I have the option of a 500Mbit line, but I have friends who live just a few kilometers away, who are stuck with ~10Mbit DSL or less. Based on my experience in the ISP/telco world, you can multiply that amount of money by ten, and maybe that'll be enough. For one country.
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You're reading more into it than what it says. It doesn't say that 120m Euros will pay for it all. It just says that a grant in total of 120m Euros will be available to pay for state of the art equipment.
It also says that free wifi will be available in every town, village, and city. It doesn't say how widespread it is or that every person can access it within the locality. Have a library that has free wifi? That town is covered. Is there a coffee shop in Paris with free wifi? Paris is checked off. It doesn'
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It's all about making Europe look attractive. The results of the Brexit referendum surprised a lot of people, but shouldn't have done. One the one side you had people who hated the EU largely for emotional reasons. On the other side, you had people who had a lukewarm liking for the EU, for pragmatic reasons. Very few people on the Remain side were saying 'The EU is great!' Most were saying 'leaving the EU would be very bad!' The most honest of the lot was Jeremy Corbyn, who said 'the EU sucks, but it'
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I think the article is conflating different things, the 120m euro fund is for free WiFi. And they have a goal of 100 Mbps for everyone by 2025, but that's more of a political ambition. Here in Norway I know last year they estimated ~600 million euro to give everyone 10/0.8 Mbps, what 100/100(?) would cost I don't know but many billions but it's an unfunded "goal" of our government too. There's still a lot of steam in the pure commercial + hybrid private/public fiber rollout though, it's really two different
Paid for by Apple! (Score:1)
Paid for by Apple!
Great (Score:4, Insightful)
UK will get a firewall instead, while on the mainland you have free wifi. Nice trade isn't it?
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Cisco lowered their prices enough to make that possible?
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I'm reffering to : https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
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Perhaps Britain shouldn't have brexited the EU then...
Recycling old APs with new software would be sane (Score:2)
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Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Who pays for the "free" stuff? (Score:1)
TANSTAAFL
ACCESS, not affordable access (Score:2)
The commission has also set a target for all European households to have access to download speeds of at least 100Mbps by 2025,
All this means is that ISPs will put a new, premium, service on their portfolios, priced at whatever it would cost them to install - or whatever they choose: either to make a killing from, or to discourage uptake.
There is nothing in this target to say the provision has to be affordable. So if an ISP in an out-of-the-way place, maybe halfway up a mountain, decides it would cost them €250,000 to provide their half-dozen subscribers with 100MBit/s connections, they would price the product accordingly.
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All this means is that ISPs will put a new, premium, service on their portfolios, priced at whatever it would cost them to install - or whatever they choose.
With only 120 million euro to spend... they have to recoup their costs somehow!
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All this means is that ISPs will put a new, premium, service on their portfolios, priced at whatever it would cost them to install -
Under that definition of "access", everyone in the United States has access to gigabit internet service. They just cannot afford to pay what it would cost to get it.
There is nothing in this target to say the provision has to be affordable.
I'm guessing that it is already available for a goodly sum. What does this pronouncement of mandatory "access" mean unless it also means "affordable"? It is meaningless otherwise. It's like saying "everyone will have access to Stoly vodka by 2025." Everyone has access to it now, except that it's expensive and many people cannot afford it. And i
For the new Century (Score:2)
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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 guarantee of high speed Internet.--That to secure these networks."
Oh wait... wrong country!
Well, There's This (Score:5, Interesting)
Something those of us in the US would do well to emulate.
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Something those of us in the US would do well to emulate.
So if you cannot afford a cell phone, or are in a place with no cell service, there should be absolutely no way to make a telephone call unless you happen to have someplace to install a wired phone of your own? No transients ever need to make phone calls?
It's nice for the technical haves to tell the rest of the world that their needs are irrelevant.
Free DNS for all as well! (Score:2, Interesting)
Want to use the municipal wifi? well, here's your DNS servers (no, you can't change them! Why would you even ask that citizen?)
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As the EU crumbles... (Score:1)
Easy to make promises you can't keep to save your job. First the UK, then Greece, then a plethora more and there goes the EU. Those of us living in 'the zone' 20 years ago are shaking our heads mumbling 'told you so'.
Data caps? (Score:2)
What kind of data caps are we looking at here?
The most expensive German mobile broadband connections have a 15 GB data cap per month, after which you get throttled to 64 kbps for the remainder of the month.
My current ADSL connection maxes out at 448/96 kbps thanks to being too far from the DSLAM, so a 100 mbps mobile broadband connection would be very welcome so I can experience things like Skyping, Netflix-And-Chill, playing games while my friends are still playing them etc. - but it depends a LOT on the m
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... Will convert for internet.
Sucks to be Britain (Score:5, Funny)
town, village, and city? (Score:2)
OK, so the people who can already get 100Mb for pennies a day get an even better deal, and the people stuck on with plans calling for hundreds of dollars for a satellite dish installation and still only 10Mb for loads more money per month get nothing?
Re: town, village, and city? (Score:5, Informative)
I take it you haven't been to Northern Europe? The Nordic countries have decent consumer rights legislation so mobile operators must provide the same service everywhere, if they wish to have a license for areas with (by their metrics) "high" population density. You can really get 4G in the middle of nowhere there with no monthly cap and dirt cheap.
It depends (Score:1)
Is it free Wi-Fi or rather tax funded mass surveillance?
State-of-the-art? (Score:2)
A new grant, with a total budget of 120 million euro, will allow public authorities to purchase state-of-the art equipment, for example a local wireless access point.
Well, it will have been state-of-the-art at some point in time before it was purchased. It will be obsolescent by the time it's installed.
More proof the US is a 3rd world nation (Score:1)
We will spend the next 20 years arguing why we can't do the same, and bribing politicians to do nothing, while the EU does it in 3.
Smell the money grab (Score:2)
$120M is in no way, shape, or form enough money to provide enough WAPs and the necessary infrastructure to provide decent usable coverage to even half of the EU cities. I've done physical network buildouts in buildings before, and those can run a couple million easy depending upon things like age, construction type, pre-existing interference, building size, etc. Imagine a city vs a typical warehouse building. Now imagine every city (I wonder if they're including towns and more rural areas) in every EU count
After crises, after Greece (Score:2)
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