The last thing you would associate Finland and the Finns with is surfing. Insofar as jumping onto planks of wood and riding the waves is concerned you would probably be better off on a beach in Waikiki or Ooolalallalawotawave. There is another kind of surfing though that has just been granted the status of a legal right in the country that is neither Scandinavian nor Baltic but that just sits prettily between the two agglomerations. "You have the right to surf the net at a broadband speed. You have the right to be constantly connected to the information superhighway. You have the right to kill off the boredom of those endless days and sleepless nights by hooking up to the virtual world". That, in paraphrased J'accuse parlance, is what every Finnish citizen has just acquired thanks to a bold move by the Finnish government.
From 1 July every Finn will have the right to access to a 1Mbps (megabit per second) broadband connection. Finland has vowed to connect everyone to a 100Mbps connection by 2015.
To boldly go where no government has gone before is admirable. To do so with the declared intent to bring everyone up to standard on the information society is pure genius. The logic, according to Finland's communication minister, is that it is useless to develop an information society if not everybody is using it. This is surely one way to tackle a huge source of poverty - ignorance.
Now listen to this. A poll conducted by the BBC World Service earlier in 2010 found out that "almost four in five people around the world believed that access to the internet is a fundamental right". Way to go Berners-Lee.
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Hi Jacques!!!
Thank you very much for this info.. it’s very interesting, and as you sais, a good way to kill the ignorance… however, there is also teh risk of having a population more into the virtual world than into the real one.
Hiya Hussam,
Thanks for your comment. I see you are a Coleurope student/gard. Are you in the Natolin Campus or Bruges? I was a Bruges grad ten years ago this year!
Hey dude,
I have finished two weeks ago a Natolin year…
and actually there we had the right to surf 24/7, but it felt like living in a bubble, in a virtual world…
Yes Jacques. I agree with Hussam.
This is a very interesting post. I like the graphics, too! I wonder when Chinese and the North Koreans can truly enjoy full access to the internet.
Well done Finland! It’s good to see they’re up-to-date with the changing world.
Interesting post fellow. Great Finnish initiative. It’s a pity it’s not available for all…
It slowly becomes a fundamental right.It provides access to information, free education, services crucial to our lives. I’d like to think of it as a new version of my local library - I would hate to live with the access to ‘those books’...
Interesting move by the Finish government, and for sure the internet is a kind of human right these days - as China and N.Corea shows. For most people I think this will not make such a big difference - in most oarts of Finland you can have a broadband connection if you pay for it.
The interesting thing is how to guarantee the right to broad band in the country’s extreme north, where it is probably no profitable to invest for private companies.
Telia Sonera (one ISP) have went to court to argue that they are not obliged to provide broadband wherever, but as far as I know the case is not settled yet.
But another thing… if we have a right to broadband, is it then as important as teh right to life or to free speech? If not, are some rights absolute and others relative? This is a question that philosophes will have to ponder in the 21’th century
Jacques, great initiative!
Do you think all broadbanders will use their internet access for their own development to be a valid member of information society?
When something is granted people tend (human nature….) to not to use it or abuse it.