Well before you start packing up the kids and heading to Finland now that it is a Civil Right to have Broadband you still have to pay for it.
The Government of Finland just passed a law that Telecom companies must provide all citizens Access to Broadband cable at a reasonable price. Their idea of Broadband is 1mbit and the price is about $45 a month US.
This price is more then the average American would pay for Broadband if it is accessible in their area and for about 60% of US Homes Broadband is available through some type of hookup whether it be DSL, Cable or Wireless. For instance CrapCast has just reduced their price for 1mbit service to $25 a month and this is due to most of their customers choosing the 3mbit or higher plans for $45 and up. The lower priced plan actually reduces load on CrapCast’s network so they are happy to reduce your transfer rates… It would be nice though if they dropped the price another $10.
In Finland there are approximately 5 million people this is less then the Metropolitan area of Philadelphia or NYC and about half the number of people that live in Los Angeles.
The ability for Finland to dictate availability and pricing for broadband access is less meaningful then a state Public Utilities Commission placing rate caps on services which we already do in the USA but Availability is a Key.
In the USA where we have 62 times the number of people in Finland and many of us live outside of cities with huge distances between telephone company frames or cable company headends.
The fact is when it costs millions of dollars to wire one home on a rural farm the payback is just not there. Sure we need farmers and their children deserve to have a good education and availability to news and entertainment but at what cost. If the Government mandates availability then providers will require incentives and that means higher taxes and higher rates for all of us.
There are things that should be done.
First off companies like Comcast should not be purchasing Sports Stadiums for tens of billions in a number of cities nor should they be donating literally billions over the past decade to special programs and charities that are favored by the government officials that wright laws controlling Comcast’s actions which are basically back room payoffs for votes.
There are a lot of unscrupulous things going on here but lets get it straight Finland is the size of a City in the USA and we can not apply their laws here.
