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Broadband a legal right from 2010 in Finland
Thursday 15 October 2009 13:54:52 by John Hunt

A law has been passed that will see Finland be the first country to declare broadband a legal right. From July 2010, telecommunications companies will be obliged to provide all 5.2m Finnish residents with a broadband connection at speeds of at least 1Meg. They plan to improve this in future with a view to making 100meg broadband available to everyone by 2015.

Whilst around 95% of the population already have Internet access, the law should help fill in the gaps, particularly in rural areas, where only limited access is available.

Earlier this year, France declared Internet access to be a human right and accordingly dropped plans for disconnecting users who illegally share copyrighted material. In the meantime, back here in the UK we are looking at the opposite of a legal right to broadband or Internet access and are mulling over implementing the very same system that was deemed illegal in France- remove a users Internet access if they are thought to fall foul of copyright infringement laws.

[ Topic: Broadband | 25 comments | link to this item ]
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Comments

Posted by cyberdoyle 5 months ago
Good for Finland. Damn shame our lot don't realise this is the way to go. Lay fibre, deliver a meg through it, expand seamlessly when needed and the money is there to pay for it. Excellent. Hope nobody cons them into using copper. But the Fins are pretty smart. Hope they see through anyone coming up with quick fix copper patches and cut straight to Next Gen Access.
Posted by AndrueC 5 months ago
Good for them. I also like the inclusion of a commitment to increase the speed over time.

Unlike Cyberdoyle I see no reason to discuss the relative merits of physical media. This may be because I don't have a personal hang-up on the subject :)
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 5 months ago
Fibre? No, they're not suggesting fibre everywhere. Indeed, a good deal of it will be done by satalight, initially.
Posted by ElBobbo 5 months ago
Finland as of January had 35% of the households passed by 100Mbit fibre, 60% passed by 24Mbit and >98% passed by 1Mbit.
The government plans to have 95% of households passed by 100Mbps broadband - and might I emphasise this is _without_ public funding by 2015. The public funding only applies to the last five percent.

That doesn't leave much for satellites, mate. Good luck getting 100Mbit from one of those.
Posted by citizenx 5 months ago
Thats just silly.

Posted by Dawn_Falcon 5 months ago
The last 1%, ElBobbo.

And you can bond channels to get 100MBit down from one, certainly.
Posted by ElBobbo 5 months ago
Yes, that'll be the day.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 5 months ago
?

It's perfectly possible RIGHT NOW. It's expensive, but if you need to...
Posted by ElBobbo 5 months ago
Well, that sounds like a good use of the taxpayer's money. Excellent plan.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 5 months ago
...

You're going off on one of these strange tangents absolutely unrelated to the issue at hand again. You said it wasn't possible, I pointed out that it was. You're wrong as usual, sit back and accept it.
Posted by ElBobbo 5 months ago
First you start by saying a good deal will be done by satellite. Is 1% your idea of a 'good deal'?

Then you go and claim that you could provide that 1% - ~52,500 households - with 100Mbit broadband via satellite. Ludicrous.
Posted by otester 5 months ago
BT and Virgin didn't start off in very good positions, lots of debt and red tape.

IMO they've done pretty well so far.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 5 months ago
ElBobbit - Liar, liar, pants on fire.

What I actually said is that they're planning to use Satelight in the shorter term to achieve the final 1% of coverage.

Anything else is a fiction you've invented out of the little boices in your head.
Posted by ElBobbo 5 months ago
Ho hum, yet again you've resorted to acting like a boorish little child and now we have to discard everything you've said short of the first post - which was misleading anyway.
Posted by andrew (Favicon staff member) 5 months ago
The Finnish example gets interesting as up to 2km of cable (docsis or twisted pair) can be in the loop for the 100Meg USO by 2015.

Posted by JNeuhoff 5 months ago
I thought Finland mainly uses FTTP. Either way, their example should be copied in the UK. Of course, BT would have to be replaced by something else to make it happen here.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 5 months ago
ElBobbit - No, I'm pointing out you're a pathological liar who'll cry and whine when people point out you're wrong. Grow up, man up, and admit you're often wrong.

Well yes, JNeuhoff, because there's absolutely no way it's affordable here without the government basically buying BT and paying for it with tax money.
Posted by ElBobbo 5 months ago
Lots of claims, Dawn, no proof. Please provide evidence for your claim that it's not affordable here. You should be including comparisons of costs for fibre, ducting, civil work, such as cost per house passed for Finland and the UK and studies done to show the current demand for higher bandwidth broadband.

Your favourite little telco appears to be contradicting you. BT is, after all, rolling out GPON (a solution you were vehemently against) to 2M here for peanuts (£1.5B is pocket change compared to their estimated £25B for GPON).
Posted by ElBobbo 5 months ago
You're not going to, of course, because you never provide numbers. It's difficult when they contradict your bullshit.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 5 months ago
What claims am I making? I've made a single claim about coverage in this thread which is quite evident if you read their documentation (but you only read English, I'm betting).

Why would I address issues I've talked about in an entirely different news article HERE? You're delusional.

And yes, I disagree with BT's using PON networks. This is not news. (PS, when is your "favorite telco" rolling out FTTH/C for millions? Do tell...)
Posted by ElBobbo 5 months ago
You told JNeuhoff that there's absolutely no way it's affordable here. That sounds like a claim to me. Perhaps you think that anything you say suddenly becomes fact?

BT's rolling out FTTC and FTTH. It's... on this site. We've talked about it. It may not be as fast or as wide as I'd like, but they are doing it.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 5 months ago
100% FTTH in the UK, what he called for? Yea, that would require the government to effectively buyout BT with the scale of investment.

It's a statement of fact, not a claim, and has nothing to do with you.
Posted by JNeuhoff 5 months ago
I don't think you'd have to buyout BT for a 100% FTTP. Bypassing BT altogether would make more sense. We are talking here about serious telecom services which BT doesn't do.
Posted by Somerset 5 months ago
BT have ducts, poles and exchanges. Yes, makes sense. Or not.

What serious telecom services do BT not do?
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 5 months ago
Yea, JNeuhoff, it'd make sense spending tens of billions replicating precisely what BT do. And sure, BT ain't serious...they only have ..what.. a £20 billion a year turnover. Lol.
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