Broadband for All in Finland But Not United States
Every one of the 5.5 million citizens of Finland were recently given the right to 1 megabit broadband access. Not only that, but the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications government has committed to ensuring a legal right to 100 megabit access by 2015.
The lightly researched headlines, though, didn't mention that other countries, not including the U.S., had made similar commitments earlier. As reported by BroadbandCensus.com, Switzerland made a similar commitment back in 2006. Other countries followed, their report showed. "The United Kingdom announced through their Digital Britain plan to have 100 percent coverage by 2012 with a minimum speed of 2 Mbps.
"Germany has also announced full coverage by the end of 2010: 75 percent of all households are to have speeds of 50 Mbps by 2014, and then 100 Mbps for 100 percent of households by 2018. France also announced a plan to get universal coverage by 2012."
Sorting out what's going on with access to broadband takes more than a simple comparison of these governmental goals.
A look at the availability map (give it awhile to load) for Columbia, South Carolina produced by BroadbandCensus.com and the Benedict-Allen Community Development Corporation shows one of the reasons. The map reveals deep complexities beneath the national statistics: rural availability, cost, competitiveness and effective average speed.
Digital Divide or Non-Issue Whether broadband access should be a right, and whether there is a significant gap between European and U.S. broadband access is a matter of some debate. For example, Randall Stross argues in a New York Times piece that as much as 94% of U.S. households already have 3-10 megabit access, and that the issues aren't technical, but rather social, cultural or educational.
What Stross doesn't emphasize, though, is that the problem isn't just infrastructure, any more than building a new school can guarantee improved learning outcomes within a particular community. Even apart from the unique challenges of rural areas, roughly 17% of the population can't afford monthly broadband fees even when it's available to them, and the lack of wired broadband competition in many markets suggests that fees are unlikely to come down anytime soon.
This confusion may explain why a recent PC Magazine story analyzing an FCC task force report points out that only 2/3 of the U.S. has broadband at home. It also notes that a marked shift from communications and entertainment as dominant applications toward education, business and "other productives uses" is underway.
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