| Finland: 100 Megabits to 99% |
| Written by Dave Burstein |
| Monday, 17 November 2008 22:54 |
 Finland, the most sparsely populated country in Europe, will offer 100 meg to almost every home. By 2016,  only a few thousand of the most remote Finnish households will not be connected. Helsinki will be connected at a (shared) gigabit.
Finland is a country of thousands of lakes and islands – 187,888 lakes (larger than 500 m²) and 179,584 islands. The landscape is covered mostly (seventy-five percent of land area) by coniferous taiga forests and fens. Finland is the first nation in the West to with concrete plans for near-universal highspeed service. That's a milestone, even if the entire country has fewer than New York City's 3.1M homes. If Finland can do this, why can't Britain or Germany, Wisconsin or Alberta?The government will provide a subsidy up to 1/3 of the cost in some rural areas, budgeting $100M. They've determined that should be sufficient, threatening auctions if the incumbents don't respond. Harri75% Forest intends to accept nothing less from carriers. "I shall no longer tolerate a single idea from telecommunications executives to the effect that the countryside does not need 100 megabits [a second] ." I've long recommended a similar policy in the U.S., which I call the office intern soluttion. If a carrier refuses do to provide basic information to the FCC, next time they want a meeting let the college kid working for the summer listen to them and take careful notes. Current U.S. practice is very different, with a dozen AT&T and FCC officials sitting together to define the ICC/USF proposals. 93% of Finnish homes now have broadband, although about half are under 2 megabits. Finland has more broadband connections than landline phones, nearly 2M. 1.2M are DSL, which has been flat the last 12 months, with 212K cable. |
