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Internet Policies in Other Countries?
Panthro asks: "I am writing a paper on how other countries are handling the internet, including censoring, broadband infrastructure deployment, ISP availability and quality, and general involvement levels of governments in the delivery of content to their constituents. Any personal experience involving the creation or enforcing of such policies would be very helpful." It's always wise to know what internet policies are being enforced out there, if only to know what's been decided on by others, which policies you might want to implement and which ones you might want to avoid implementing at any cost.
Here in Portugal the communications infrastructure is owned by one company, Portugal Telecom, which is, of course, a monopoly, and a state-owned one at that (it's been privatized, but that didn't change much). Private companies have been piggy-backing on regional and national calls for about two years, but local calls are just now opening up (still piggy-backing, and are still ina transitional phase).
:-) )
So, we pay ISP's for our connection, and we pay for the calls.
We now have free internet access, but it sucks. You really have to pay if you want to have something passable.
Cable is also pratically a monopoly, and is now just starting to offer net access, but there are few people who have it 'cause it's very expensive to set up (and they force you to use their cable modems, even if you have one. Oh, yes, and according to them, it only works on windows and you have to have a cable modem per computer... can you believe that?!?)
Censorship is non-existing (at least that). I really doubt anyone in our gov. can use a computer...
Most teens think Internet is IRC and ICQ... and netiquette is a weird word for mushrooms.
90% of the 5% of the population that knows anything about computers think that Windows is the greatest thing since codfish with garlick (favorite local dish...
Well, at least it's unexplored territory.
shana
Down here the government hasnt censored any sites I know of, but like all things that can change, especially considering that a portion of the country with a pretty loud voice is strongly influenced by the church.
Theres a lot of broadband options, the two big cable companies are offering cable connections (27$ for 160 - 80$ for 960), theres a lot of people offering dsl (40$-as high as you need-want), but the most known and popular are the telephone companies, they are not monopolies and they compete on pretty much every terrain, local, international, internet access, etc.. And everyone and their neighbour is offering dial-up with every conceivable quality and pricing options. Also theres some companies offering special connections to companies, I imagine high quality dsl or t1s, I dont know.
chao
Jajirov
At least concerning domain names, the Brazilian NIC is very controlling. You can't register domain names without the proper documentation to ensure that you are a .com. The policies for other domains, like .net.br, are even worse: you have to be a "networking company" - like a telecom - in order to get one of those domains. That, together with the fact that they overcharge a lot, is like a "please go register a .com instead of a .com.br " request.
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