Finland Officially Becomes Awesome

[The Professor]

http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/d...tics/3179.html

The Finnish government said after an informal evening session on Wednesday that it would put in place measures to the effect that no household, bar about 2,000 in far-flung corners of the country, would be farther than two kilometres from a connection capable of delivering broadband internet with a capacity of at least 100 megabits of data a second.

Suvi Lindén (cons), the communications minister, said the broadband internet market had reached a point where new infrastructure would not necessarily be built on a purely commercial basis.

"The development of that infrastructure is to be guaranteed in a way that all members of the public and companies, regardless of location, will have an opportunity to use information society services," Ms Lindén added.

Harri Pursiainen, the permanent secretary at the transport and communications minister, said the 100 Mbit/s target was modest, adding households in Helsinki would have gigabit-range speeds at their disposal come 2015.
"Data connections are no longer entertainment but a necessity," Mr Pursiainen added.

"Regional, equal communications infrastructure will not come about without state action."
The government said it would discuss the funding of its broadband programme over the course of the autumn.

Essentially, at least 1MB broadband is becoming a legal right in Finland (in the same way that shelter, food and education are) and they're aiming to get everyone on 100MB by 2015 AT THE MINIMUM. I know there aren't many of them but still... I want it

[Laurensh1]

Lucky Finns!
Move to Finland.

[HotelUser]

Yeah I saw this. I wish Canada would do this:@.

[Blinger1]

Australia just needs to upgrade the whole internet networking altogether.

[efq]

*REMOVED*

[Xoim]

Omg.. A min off 100mb!?
-moves to finland

[StefanWolves]

Isn't there the same thing happening over here now? didn't the government want all households to have at least a 2MB connection by like 2020 or something? + it's easier for them to get faster connections everywhere, as they are a very small country. We will get 100mb lines here soon, VM are already capable of it, but don't want too yet, same with BT (who are both continually upgrading their wires).

[Flisker]

Isn't there the same thing happening over here now? didn't the government want all households to have at least a 2MB connection by like 2020 or something? + it's easier for them to get faster connections everywhere, as they are a very small country. We will get 100mb lines here soon, VM are already capable of it, but don't want too yet, same with BT (who are both continually upgrading their wires).

Its not all about country size, it's mainly to do with infrastructure age and investment to upgrade the infrastructure. The UK has one of the oldest infrastructures which will cost a lot more money to upgrade than other countries like Finland.

[StefanWolves]

Its not all about country size, it's mainly to do with infrastructure age and investment to upgrade the infrastructure. The UK has one of the oldest infrastructures which will cost a lot more money to upgrade than other countries like Finland.

That and the fact that the UK is 10x bigger in population and area?

[Flisker]

That and the fact that the UK is 10x bigger in population and area?

Finland:
Area - Total 338,424 km2 (64th)
130,596 sq mi
Population - 2009 estimate 5,346,927[1] (111th) - 2000 census 5,180,000 - Density 16/km2 (201st)
40/sq mi

UK:
Area - Total 244,820 km2 (79th)
94,526 sq mi

Population - 2009 estimate 61,113,205[5] (22nd) - 2001 census 58,789,194[6] - Density 246/km2 (48th)
637/sq mi
UK may have more population but the UK is smaller than Finland so I have no idea where you got that from