Internet For All in Europe

evileyetmc writes "It seems that the EU has taken the next big step in promoting the concept of Internet for All, by attempting to 'ensure that the most Web-disadvantaged groups can get online.'" From the article: "The EC has now pledged to increase broadband coverage across the continent to 90 percent by 2010. Rural areas are still underserved, according to the Commission, with about 60 percent penetration. Urban areas fare better and are already at the 90 percent mark. The EC has also committed to putting new measures in place to halve exclusion rates in skills and digital literacy by 2010. "

Comments

mis-titled

[zxnos]

should read 'prOn for all in europe'

Re:mis-titled

[Trigun]

Umm, they call that 'The Newspaper'.

Re:mis-titled

[jizziknight]

To quote a bit of Avenue Q: "Why you think the 'Net was born? Porn, porn, porn."

Re:mis-titled

[LoonyMike]

Obviously.
The priority now is the rural areas, the penetration there is only 60%. And if you exclude the animals, I bet it is much lower than that.

I wonder how history will judge us

[oni]

It will be interesting to look back in a few decades and see how different the US and Europe will be because of their different approaches to the Internet. in the US, the Internet will be a place for businesses that can pay the carrier cartels. In Europe, the Internet will be a place (more like what we in the US have today) where ideas are exchanged freely.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Chicken04GTO]

more Euro > US bullshit. It really does get old.
People in the US will never stop exchanging ideas over the internet.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Chysn]

But TFA didn't say that they were going to require FREE broadband access; counties are commiting to creating or enhancing the infrastructure to support broadband. In the US, penetration is an issue, but lack of competition is an increasingly large complaint. I don't see how the EU's system is going to avoid that very same problem. It might even be worse in places where there's only one provider: instead of being inexpensive, the price of broadband may be off the charts for rural residents.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[RobotRunAmok]

in the US, the Internet will be a place for businesses that can pay the carrier cartels. In Europe, the Internet will be a place (more like what we in the US have today) where ideas are exchanged freely.

The U.S. will resemble Manhattan. The EU will resemble Woodstock. As I live midway between these two places and frequent them both, I can tell you that each are interesting -- nay, captivating -- in their own way. Neither place is "better;" each has its fanatical supporters and detractors. I fall in love with, and am infuriated by, both on a regular basis.

The questions "Where Would You Prefer to Live?" and "Where Would You Prefer to Work?," as relates to these two cultural paradigms, are the fundamental queries here.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[ChrisGilliard]

in the US, the Internet will be a place for businesses that can pay the carrier cartels. In Europe, the Internet will be a place (more like what we in the US have today) where ideas are exchanged freely.

Don't hold your breath on this one. I think the more likely scenario is that in the US, you will have really fast service for a small fee and in parts of Europe, you'll have a slow connection provided by the government that has problems and is perpetually in great need of an upgrade. The truth is that the cost of providing internet service has dramatically decreased over time and will continue to do so. I've seen articles about the cost of providing wireless internet connections to a city. It's actually cheaper to provide wifi internet accross a city than it is to run a local ad sponsored newspaper. Ad sponsored wifi will be pervasive soon and no one will even consider using a slow goverment connection. Why waste the money?

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[moracity]

Are you that ignorant? "Internet For All" is just code-name for another tax Europeans will have to pay for yet another substandard service provided by the government.

Europeans will be judged as a bunch of suckers that professed freedom while simultaneously giving that freedom away, tax by tax.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[sploxx]

In Europe, the Internet will be a place (more like what we in the US have today) where ideas are exchanged freely.

Haha. Two words: data retention

One of these idiotic, invasive things which got first thought out here in good old europe and then exported to the US (we have to 'catch up with the rest of the world' or what are they always telling you?)

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[G Morgan]

What do you mean by competitors. Britain (and most of Europe AFAIK) have a state sanctioned broadband setup that all the ISP's compete across. I'm with a company called Plusnet but there are a whole host of ISP's ready to take my custom should Plusnet annoy me too much and I'm in the darkest depths of the Welsh Valleys so I'm not near any large population center.

I don't think competition is an issue and as time is moving on broadband is getting much cheaper, much faster, more reliable and with greater penetration. I suppose it just goes to show the value of a mixed economy over a pure free market. Nobody is in danger of taking our internet bar the American companies since all net usage still requires the US for things like DNS (that will obviously start to change the day US telcos break net neutrality, the EU will get Galileo/GPS about it likely).

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[masklinn]

But TFA didn't say that they were going to require FREE broadband access;

GP's point was about the Net Neutrality thing issue, not about the cost of broadband.

I don't see how the EU's system is going to avoid that very same problem.

States subsidies the pipes, then forbits anyone to hog them for himself. In france, it was done via deblocking for example, the historical operator (France Telecom) who owned all the pipes was forced by law to let concurrents access these pipes directly up to the very consumer's house (that's total deblocking, partial deblocking means that the alernative operators get direct access to the DSLAMs and the local loop is still the historical operator's turf).

Granted the price of broadband may stay high, but if what happened in france is any indication it won't.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[masklinn]

Are you that ignorant? "Internet For All" is just code-name for another tax Europeans will have to pay for yet another substandard service provided by the government.

That, or govt-subsidized laying of the pipes and then unrestricted access to these pipes to competitive private entities for a fee.

That's what happened in france where the govt-sponsored historical operator was required by law to let competitors access the consumers directly (partial & full deblocking)... (and france is not known for it's "free market will sort itself" view of economy)

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[servognome]

in the US, the Internet will be a place for businesses that can pay the carrier cartels. In Europe, the Internet will be a place (more like what we in the US have today) where ideas are exchanged freely.

What you ignore is that big business cannot survive on the internet without average folk and small businesses. The corps are not completely self-sufficient. They buy/sell products and services from/to small businesses and individual consumers and increasingly look to do such transactions over the net to cut down on costs.
If the pipline cartels exclude the little guy, they exclude a significant portion of corporate business. We are more likely to see systems that are priced on how the access is used, rather than just bandwidth. That will in fact be more efficient in terms of passing cost to the end user (eg the guy constantly downloading videos will be paying more than the mom checking recipes and email).

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Anonymous Coward]

exchanging them for money....

Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment. It's been 11 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment <--WTF?

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Heembo]

> where ideas are exchanged freely. What kind of world do you live in? Internet traffic is: (1) tracked and recorded and/or manipulated in some way by almost every government (2) mostly plain-text communication from the moment it leaves your home So if you meant to say, "Where ideas are exchanged via plaintext for all to see, tracked and recorded by most governments (by ip) for later analysis" I'm with you, bro!

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Reality Master 101]

In Europe, the Internet will be a place (more like what we in the US have today) where ideas are exchanged freely.

Sheesh, what are you talking about? Are you talking about the same United States that guarantees free speech in the constitution (which is NOT typically guranteed in Europe) and has protected us many times from an overzealous government? And are you talking about the same Europe with France that tried to ban certain Yahoo auctions? And are you talking about the same Europe that put a man in jail for thinking the wrong thoughts?

History favors the stability of the United States. It wasn't THAT long ago that Europe dragged the world into a WW/II.

Mindless anti-Americanism really gets old somtimes.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[arodland]

The U.S. will resemble Manhattan. The EU will resemble Woodstock.

Woodstock 1999, you mean?

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Arker]

I suppose it just goes to show the value of a mixed economy over a pure free market.

Just how the heck do you figure that?

Neither place is anything like a free market, so you're comparing one mixed economy with another and somehow this comparison leads you to believe they're both better than a free market, which isn't part of your comparison?

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[AK Marc]

Sheesh, what are you talking about? Are you talking about the same United States that guarantees free speech in the constitution (which is NOT typically guranteed in Europe) and has protected us many times from an overzealous government?

No, I'm talking about the United States that guarantees "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." But yet the Supreme Court determined that it isn't an "unreasonable search" for the government to break down your door, rummage through your house, take what they want, and not bother to identify themeselves or why they are there. And it's the same United States that redefined "warrants" to include warrants after the fact. Even with the rights explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution, the government still takes them away. That's the United States I'm posting from. Where is your Unites States? I would like to visit there some day.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Monster_Juice]

in the US, the Internet will be a place for businesses that can pay the carrier cartels. In Europe, the Internet will be a place (more like what we in the US have today) where ideas are exchanged freely.

It seems that most people think exchanging ideas freely involves having a free internet connection. The freedom of speech in the US does not also mean you should get a free car to drive around in to tell people your ideas.

Nothing is free in life. The internet will be free for some and the others will pay for it either by way of higher prices for their service or by way of taxes. You can apply this to either the US or Europe. If you want to compare something in a few decades compare how the internet in the US before mafia takeover worked compares to the new socialist broadband of Europe.

Personally I don't want anyone giving me free access. When someone gives you something they tend to think they also have the right to tell you how to use it.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[takeya]

In the US we will be seen as having free market capitalism where businesses can compete with little restriction to get customers, by setting lower prices, offering more perks, or selling premium quality internet, similar to what we have today.

Europe will be seen as a socialists wasteland, where most people, except the ultrarich, settled for free government subsidized internet, while spouting about their taxes being too high.

That's all I can guess. Pampered welfare babies don't have any "right" to post political banter online for free. They have a right to look for work, to get money and actually DO something in exchange for internet service, a costly service to provide.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[MisterBuggie]

Erm, I have to disagree here. Right now there are quite a few countries in Europe that have a good coverage and very good speed for pretty low prices. In the US, well, you have to be lucky enough to live in a place that the telco companies consider important enough to deliver a semi decent service, and you usually have to pay a fortune anyway. And no, NYC does not count as the entire USA...

France is usually the first country cited by Americans when talking about anything govt controlled in Europe. Yet France, for such a rural country has an extremely good coverage. By the end of the year, 98% of the population should have access to adsl. France Telecom offers aren't exactly expensive either. Triple play starts at 30 euros (1Mbps/VoIP with unlimited calls/IPTV) or you can get, for example, 40 euros for 18Mbps + IPTV. That is the govt owned internet company. And if it has one advantage over other ISPs, it's reliability. The main reason people choose to go with France Telecom is because they'd rather pay a bit more and be sure it works. I personally have a different ISP, it's cheaper and there are more services, but it's also more of a risk...

So I'm sorry, but govt owned ISPs are just fine, however a little competition from the private market does make it even better.

Oh, and if you still think France Telecom's 18Mbps is slow, rest assured, France Telecom is currently planning on laying down FTTH.

So sure, the only example I can give is France, but it certainly is a damned good example, especially when we see the Americans, who a few years back were ahead of the rest with their cable connections, now currently debating over what possible use people could make of 5Mbps... (oh wow how fast...). I mean your market hasn't really changed much in years...

And one last thing, you compare govt connections and wifi in a city... Erm, the whole thing is about bringing broadband to rural areas, where wifi won't be an option... In cities, there is already a lot of competition...

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[takeya]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_festival

The Woodstock Music and Art Festival was a rock festival held at Max Yasgur's 600 acre (2.4 km) dairy farm in Bethel, New York

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Reality Master 101]

against unreasonable searches and seizures

There's that pesky word "unreasonable" again.

But yet the Supreme Court determined that it isn't an "unreasonable search" for the government to break down your door, rummage through your house, take what they want, and not bother to identify themeselves or why they are there.

And why should they? If they have a warrant (*see below), then I have no problem with the authorities doing the above in order to enforce law, order and justice. If it's later in the process that you learn why they're there, what difference does it make?

And it's the same United States that redefined "warrants" to include warrants after the fact.

Again, who cares? I have no problem with that as long as, 1) there are appropriate punishments when a warrant is NOT issued, and 2) it's done rarely and with probable cause. Sometimes when life is imminently threatened, the police need some slack. It doesn't mean we give them carte blanche, but I do believe in flexibility.

One of the reasons that the police have become so insulated from society is exactly BECAUSE of the inflexibility of "the rules". Any little mistake, and the criminal is back on the streets. I personally believe that mistakes in evidence gathering should not taint the evidence, but that it should cause sanctions against the officer and the department. The criminal still goes to jail, and the police take responsibility. But that's a bit off the subject.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[EsbenMoseHansen]

United States that guarantees free speech in the constitution (which is NOT typically guranteed in Europe)

You are wrong there, I think. To quote from the Danish constitution (chapter VIII, if you care)

77. Enhver er berettiget til på tryk, i skrift og tale at offentliggøre sine tanker, dog under ansvar for domstolene. Censur og andre forebyggende forholdsregler kan ingensinde påny indføres.

Translated (by me, tired)It is every citizens right to publish his thoughts in written or oral form, though being responsible to the judges. Censorship or other preventive measures can never again be instigated.

Just as sort of a public service :)

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[jedrek]

I think the more likely scenario is that in the US, you will have really fast service for a small fee and in parts of Europe, you'll have a slow connection provided by the government that has problems and is perpetually in great need of an upgrade.

Yeah, because this is what's happening now... oh wait, it's not.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[janet-on]

I thought too that the US were a long way ahead in technology. I came for a conference in Austin, TX last November, and on the way back I stayed for a week in NY. I was disappointed in some ways:
How comes that I can't bloody call Europe from a payphone in Chicago airport? And where are the credit-card phones? It's an international airport, not a café! It's not that I did not try, and I tried the week later too. Yes, I know you use 011 instead of 00. It finally worked on Broadway by the 50th street.
Why doesn't my damn GSM mobile work? What's the fuss with multiple standards over here? (Yes, my phone is a triple band and was supposed to work in NY and Chicago, though not Austin). Damn, these work in Thailand, why don't they work in the US?
The conference in Austin was AIChE [aiche.org] 2004. Number of participants: about 5,000. Number of complimentary internet connections: 0. Luckily there was a nice café at 6th/Congress with free access to Macs.
My Diners stopped working for a couple of days, and the Visa was dead. It would work early in the morning.
(This one is getting flamed)The statue of Liberty is small!!! I can't believe it's taller than the one in my town [antaresarona.com].
Why are still stuck in the stone, pound and foot age?
Times square: it's not square to begin with, and it's ludicrously small. It looks so big in the images from new year's eve...

Ok, ok, I have to compensate with some positive points...
Ok, there are people who speak other language than English. I expected worse, on the plane to New York I was sitting beside a girl who completely by chance spoke Italian (and not bad either!).
Ellis Island more than compensated for Liberty Island. The museum there was cool, even if I did not find my grandfather's brother in the archives.
Food is nowhere near terrible as in England, and because of Mexico food in Austin was actually quite good. Que vivan los migrantes!
I happened to hear the Veteran's Day speech at the Texas capitol. Sorry for the people governed by these beasts, but for me it was an experience to see the closest thing to a Nazi rally I will ever witness (I hope).
Prospect park in NY rules!
Now, when I see "Venner for livet" (Friends) or "Sex og singelliv" (Sex and the city) I actually recognize the places!

Anyway, back to the point: the US are not as advanced as many, Americans and not, think they are. At least not in the level of technology the citizens are exposed to, I have definitely seen enough to deem it unlikely that I was victim of a long series of unlucky coincidences.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[thannine]

test

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[AK Marc]

I have no problem with that

Does that mean you want the government to violate the Constitution when someone agrees with it, or does that mean that you think the actions are not in violation of the Constitution? I can't understand on which point (or both) that you don't have a problem with it.

particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I see it as simply unconstitutional (whether you "have a problem with that" is a separate issue). By the wording, the warrant must describe the area to be searched/seized/whatever. The warrant can not be issued to describe what has been seized or searched. I'm not arguing what I think they should be able to do, what I want them to do. I'm pointing out that the words used in the Constitution explicitly exclude the option of warrants after the fact.

I personally believe that mistakes in evidence gathering should not taint the evidence, but that it should cause sanctions against the officer and the department. The criminal still goes to jail, and the police take responsibility.

I would be for that, but I've only seen that result in slaps on the wrist for the cops and jail under questionable circumstances for the defendants. If there was a 3-strike rule for cops (first one fined a year's pay, second suspended for 5 years, third fired and thrown in jail for no less than 5 years and barred from any government service - including subcontracting - for life) then I'd be happy letting in all the illegal evidence. Our system was designed to knowingly keep guilty people out of jail. It is better to have no one in jail than catch a bunch of innocents mixed with the guilty - at least that's my impression of the intent from the rules written.

And I don't consider a purposeful decision to execute a no-knock warrant or to tap a phone when you know you don't have a warrant to be a "mistake" in evidence gathering. "Mistake" does not convey the purposeful nature of the action. They *chose* to take an action they know is borderline unconstitutional and under review. They *know* it is something that reduces the rights of the person being investigated. They didn't accidently perform the tap. They didn't accidently leave the warrant in the car while they grabbed the battering ram. They made the deliberate choices. It is a "mistake" like theft is a "mistake." You might regret getting caught, but you knew what you were doing and did it anyway.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't THAT long ago that Europe dragged the world into a WW/II.
Mindless anti-Americanism really gets old somtimes.

Please don't involve Europe in places that have gotten into wars most recently. :-p
Your own delusional president think he's fighting WW3 currently.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[bufalo_1973]

Not necessary. With a law saying "being an ISP means covering X% including not-citizen areas" and ISP will put the lines, maybe with different "products".

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Anonymous Coward]

in the US, you will have really fast service for a small fee and in parts of Europe, you'll have a slow connection provided by the government that has problems and is perpetually in great need of an upgrade.

Wait wait... the exact contrary is actually happening. From what I have seen, broadband in France is much cheaper than in Canada, with a better coverage and much better performance... 24 Mb/s connection with unlimited phone calls to most of Europe and all of North America, ~100 TV channels and a fixed IP included for 30 euros/month, in a 50 000 inhabitants city, anyone ? Granted, in my parents house, in a rural 300 inhabitants town, they can only have a 8 Mb/s connection without the TV channels.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. will resemble Manhattan. The EU will resemble Woodstock. As I live midway between these two places and frequent them both, I can tell you that each are interesting -- nay, captivating -- in their own way. Neither place is "better;" each has its fanatical supporters and detractors. I fall in love with, and am infuriated by, both on a regular basis.

The questions "Where Would You Prefer to Live?" and "Where Would You Prefer to Work?," as relates to these two cultural paradigms, are the fundamental queries here.

Neither actually. Bad analogy. When you have to pick between 2 extremes, you have no choice. Dirty Hippies, or Dirty Streets. That's no choice at all.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Reality Master 101]

Please don't involve Europe in places that have gotten into wars most recently. :-p

The difference is that Europe fought wars of expansion and domination, whereas the US is fighting wars against agressive hostiles.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[G Morgan]

I just suppose that in this case the companies have been allowed too much control over a critical service in the US while in the UK we've been fortunate enough so far as to have limitations on the power BT can utilise over the public. America certainly doesn't have a free market because if it did the RIAA would be told 'ah, this web thing will put you out of business. Well I hope your replacements are as useful as you were' but the problem in your case is most inteference is to protect corperations that are failing or going to fail rather than protecting the public.

Anyway its just that we are looking at a situation where a country has allowed the telcos too much control with the result looking like the end of net neutrality in the USA. Your leaders had the chance to back net neutrality and they didn't. The people of the USA will suffer because of it unfortunately. In Britain, BT doesn't have enough power to break net neutrality anyway irrespective of the law.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[A beautiful mind]

guarantees free speech in the constitution (which is NOT typically guranteed in Europe)

Well, I think you mean UK on "most of Europe" as they don't have a constitution, but for much of Continental Europe your statement doesn't stand.

Specifically, my country's constitution specifically says "61. (1) A Magyar Köztársaságban mindenkinek joga van a szabad véleménynyilvánításra, továbbá arra, hogy a közérdek adatokat megismerje, illetleg terjessze.", which is a normal free speech declaration. All constitutions only matter if they are stricly enforced and noone is exempt from obeying them in a given country. Can you say that with good faith that your current administration obeys the constitution of your country?

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[RobotRunAmok]

Uhhhhh, I was referring to Woodstock, the town in Ulster County, New York. It's known as a beacon for the counter-culture. Sure, there was a music festival or two there, I suppose.

Here's a tip: Don't just plug words and phrases into Wikipedia and regurgitate them back onto major websites as if The Lord Has Spoken. There is so much wrong with that, on so many levels...

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[jawtheshark]

(that's total deblocking, partial deblocking means that the alernative operators get direct access to the DSLAMs and the local loop is still the historical operator's turf).

Thanks for explaining this. I never understood why in my country I had to pay both my ISP and the national P&T company for my internet access. (The P&T company charging *more* than my ISP). In Belgium, France and Germany (our neighbours, you can guess now) this doesn't seem to be the case and people have cheap internet. I don't complain, by now I have 1Mbps/128kbps, for a "mere" ~33€. Back when I started it was over 60€ for 256kbps/64kbps, and don't get me started on ISDN before that. /P>

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Anonymous Coward]

>>The U.S. will resemble Manhattan. The EU will resemble Woodstock.
Woodstock 1999, you mean?

Believe it or not, there is an actual town named 'Woodstock', and it has had a reputation as an 'artist's community' for some time now.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[ricky-road-flats]

Are you talking about the same United States that guarantees free speech in the constitution (which is NOT typically guranteed in Europe)

See articles 9 and 10 here, which applies everywhere in the EU. And we can all have a much better discussion about human rights and freedoms when you bastards have either released or properly trialled everyone at Guantanamo - I agree with you on the mindless anti-americanism, but Bush has made it so much easier to be insightfully anti-american.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Anonymous Coward]

2mbit/24mbit for 25 a month in Paris over DSL2

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[JSchoeck]

No central or western european country has any state-run telephone/internet companies anymore. All nations have broadband faster at equal speed or even much faster than the general internet connection in the USA. For example: France has DSL 20MBit in cities and DSL 6MBit in other areas, Germany has DSL 6MBit in cities and at least 2MBit in rural areas with 20MBit coming this or next year. You hope/uninformed prophecy will not come true, because internet connectivity in Europe is already past the state you describe for the future.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Arker]

I think you're exactly right. I still don't see anything even vaguely resembling a free market in either case. ;)

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[masklinn]

Thanks for explaining this. I never understood why in my country I had to pay both my ISP and the national P&T company for my internet access. (The P&T company charging *more* than my ISP).

That's only one of the reasons though, the other one being that national P&Ts are, as every monopolistic entities, frigging greedy bastards.

About ISDN, that's another issue, ISDN lines can be assimilated to specialized lines, they're supposed to be extremely reliable and (at least in france) have quite high standards in uptime and noise levels (when my parents got an ISDN line because they couldn't get ADSL yet, FT had to fully redo something like 4km of phone lines because they couldn't meet their standards otherwise. And FT paid for it of course). This is one of the reasons why, while ISDN is dog slow compared to ADSL (in raw transfert rates), it has an extremely low (and constant) latency.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Anonymous Coward]

How comes that I can't bloody call Europe from a payphone in Chicago airport? And where are the credit-card phones? It's an international airport, not a café!

Because only terrorists would want to calla furrin country from an airport. Duh! Besides, we're getting rid of our pay phones. They're only for the minorities, drug addicts, and terrorists. Oh wait, those are all the same group.

Why doesn't my damn GSM mobile work? What's the fuss with multiple standards over here? (Yes, my phone is a triple band and was supposed to work in NY and Chicago, though not Austin). Damn, these work in Thailand, why don't they work in the US?

Because this is da EWE ESS AAYYYY! We don't need your steenkin standards! Interoperability? That's commie talk. Oh wait, it's 2006, not 1956. That's Terrorist talk!

The conference in Austin was AIChE [aiche.org] 2004. Number of participants: about 5,000. Number of complimentary internet connections: 0. Luckily there was a nice café at 6th/Congress with free access to Macs.

Macs? Macs are commie^WTerrorist computers! You dirty stinking liberal euro! I'm surprised Texas granted you a visa!

Ok, ok, I have to compensate with some positive points...
Ok, there are people who speak other language than English.

Yes, we call them taxi drivers...

I happened to hear the Veteran's Day speech at the Texas capitol. Sorry for the people governed by these beasts, but for me it was an experience to see the closest thing to a Nazi rally I will ever witness (I hope).

Don't Mess With Texas(s)!

Anyway, back to the point: the US are not as advanced as many, Americans and not, think they are.

Hey, our flint axes are much better than your steel ones cuz they're AMERICAN MADE (by Chinese children in slave factories owned by Walmart).

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[High Hat]

The government is not going to offer the connection. I think it's more likely they're going to pump money into businesses that provide connections to rural areas that were without connectivity before.

There's nothing communist about the EU now, it's almost as capitalist as the US of A.

Also consider that in Europe, broadband connections are already more common and usually faster than in the USA - 6MBit/s DSL is becoming the standard where I live, and there are always more than a handful of providers to choose from.

Just because the government decides something needs improvement does not mean they'll do it the communist way.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[masklinn]

Oh yeah, because Iraq was clearly hostile to the USA, I mean it's well known that they had WMDs (except not), were dangerous extremists (except not) and hosted heaps of terrorists (except not).

Well, Fox News for the win I guess.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[masklinn]

The GP never said anything about monetary cost, his "free" was "free as in freedom", not "free as in free beer".

While you do have the right to be pro-capitalism and free trade, you're not supposed to be that stupid.

If you want to compare something in a few decades compare how the internet in the US before mafia takeover worked compares to the new socialist broadband of Europe.

Are you aware that the state of broadband in Europe is already noticeably better than the state of broadband in the US?

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[flinkgutt]

Ok, as you may or may not know Europe isnt a country, it isnt even a coalition of states. We have the European Union, but not everyone is in that gang, nor is it that old and hasnt gone to war on anything or anyone (yet). Europe is a region on this blue little planet of ours, kinda like that 'troublesome' region that you may or may not have heard of, called the middle east.

That means that while some countries may have fought wars of expansion and domination during the course of history, it doesnt say we all have. It doesnt make "us" saints. Nor does that fact make you able to take the moral highground in any discussion of the application of military power.

Oh and one last little note, what constitutes "agressive" in your opinion? Since I find your countries attitude to be a tad aggressive at times.

--

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[flinkgutt]

How on earth could this parent get modded "insightful"?

Is insightful the new way to say "ignorant"? And what freedom do I lose by paying taxes? I classify "freedom" as my right/privilige to say, feel, and express whatever I want withinn reason.

We clearly must have different opinions of what freedom is.

Taxes doesnt really remove any of those rights from me, but hey, whatever you classify "freedom" as might just make the statement above true. It just doesnt really matter to me, because I'll just live my life and be happy to live where I live. And if for any reason history should judge me as a "sucker that professed freedom" but really just gave it away. So be it, I don't really have this urge to think much of how future generations will think of me and my peers. I'll just do what I think is right, and you can do what you think is right.

So just go around thinking we're giving our freedom away if that makes you sleep well at night ;-)


And btw, we're still not one country ;-)
--
Christian

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Anonymous Coward]

Did he ever say that he expected there to be free internet? Hardly. Take a look at what he wrote again. Even now, U.S. broadband is slower and far less reliable than the rest of the world. If you are lucky you'll live in an area with reliable penetration anymore. Everyone else has to deal with massive failures and outages, far more expensive for the bandwidth you've got. 3 and 5 Mbps vs places with 18 - 20 mbps (or more), or in South Korea's case, most of the country can get 100Mbps, all for a pittance.

Dunno about the reality you live in, but the number of people in the US who can even afford any form of broadband comparatively is a small fraction from the rest of the world.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[gsfprez]

In Europe, the Internet will be a place (more like what we in the US have today) where ideas are exchanged freely.

you must be in Amsterdam smoking some weed to say something as incredibly daft as "Europe... where ideas are exchanged freely"

In Europe, you can exchange ideas so long as they're everyone else's ideas. Jeremy Clarkson would beg to differ that ideas can be freely exchanged.

you can't even bring up actual real history without getting into trouble. You can't sell WWII memorabilia in France if it is German in nature.

and those are only two off the top of my head.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Anonymous Coward]

This is garbage i tell you! GARBAGE!!! all of it!
is nothing but a garbage scow scraping the bottom fo the barrel in a land of sick, diseased downer cows that get processed into baby food for the poor, and nobody will report the fucking news!!! beacuse they all have an agenda and turn a blind eye away from the trooth!

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Millenniumman]

I don't think there will be the clear dichotomy like you suggested. First you said that only businesses would be able to afford internet access. That will never happen, because ISPs would lose a lot of money. They will price it as high as they can while still selling to the optimum amount of people. Which means it will have to be priced so that most people can afford it.

And you said with certainty that in Europe with socialized internet service provision, ideas would be exchanged freely, versus the U.S. system. ISPs do not want to suppress free speech, they have no business motive. In many cases, governments do want to suppress free speech, and have.

There are other problems with socialized internet service provision. How do you decide to upgrade the infrastructure? Democratic voting is completely unfair, unless everyone pays the same amount in taxes. Representative democracy will end up working similarly, with people voting for candidates who will spend others' money. At a local level, it might work okay, but there are always going to be political issues. Improve the product, or steal less of people's money? With a free market, and competition (There is competition in internet service provision), the products will end up at an optimum balance between quality and cost. And I do not mean arbitrary "Hey it's 3 Terabits per second instead of 2, most of the cost won't be on me, I'll vote for it" quality. I mean real "This is really worth the money so I'll pay more for this other carrier with it" quality.

I think the internet will face far greater improvement from cheap to set up wireless services charging far lower prices than conventional wired services.

As far as covering rural areas, I think IP over power lines looks interesting and inexpensive for that, and I suspect ISPs will begin capitalizing on it.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[arodland]

I'm aware. Stop ruining the joke. :P

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[StikyPad]

Where is your Unites States? I would like to visit there some day.
--
Learn to love Alaska [romancingalaska.com]

About 1000 miles south/southeast.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Just Another Poster]

See articles 9 and 10 here, which applies everywhere in the EU.

ARTICLE 9 FREEDOM OF THOUGHT, CONSCIENCE AND RELIGION

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.

2. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

ARTICLE 10 FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

No thanks. I prefer "Congress shall make no law...".

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[dueyfinster]

We are also talking about a United States which has the poorest social system in the western world? Where contracts are awared all the time illicitly to corporate friends? Freedom is not only as in speech, its also as in services. For example, Irelands public transport loses money, yet our electorate support more money being poured into it, why? Multiplier effects, also it helps disadvantaged communities have access to jobs if they may not have access to a vehicle. It is exactly related to this broadband intiative, which effectively increases free speech. Ireland already has schemes like this, and it helps infrastructure move to less developed areas instead of big cities . BTW, why is the U.S. behind so many countries on press freedom : http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060615/tc_nm/telecoms _linux_dc_1 ?

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[csguy314]

But how much do those connections cost there? My impression has been that connections seem to be more expensive in Europe and other parts of the world than in North America.

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[JSchoeck]

I'm paying 16 for theoretically 20MBit DSL (flatrate) in France (effecively where I live it's 7MBit DSL). Plus another 20 or so for phone service (ISDN). In Germany I pay 45 in total for 2MBit DSL (flatrate) and regular ISDN phone service. Yes, France is cheaper and faster, because their government cares about internet access more than the German one...

Re:I wonder how history will judge us

[Anonymous Coward]

holy fuck you're retarded, you actually think there aren't dangerous extremeists and heaps of terrorists in iraq? wtf?

eire

[wwmedia]

[rant]
Here in ireland we constantly being promised internet for everyone and we are always get screwed over,
maybe with pressure from Europe, Eircom will pull their head out of their behind (they dont listen to the governement much anyways)

hell im on wireless "broadband" (Irish Broadband) now in Dublin city center and i can barely get above 30K (yes thats almost twice slower than dial up! when were meant to het up to 512K)

soo much for Knowledge Economy!
[/end rant]

Re:eire

[Evanisincontrol]

yes thats almost twice slower than dial up!

When you say it like that, it almost sounds like it's faster.

Re:eire

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have to agree, im on 3mbit, with a 30GB cap, and i pay 50 a month, that in usd is +27% ontop. They also charge you, or reserve the right to charge 30 a gigabyte used above 30GB, last time i checked a datacenter charges you 13c USD oer the quota.

Ireland and Britian are not seeing "The benifits" of this economic ability to give 3rd worlds broadband, when their own front door doesnt have the same simple privlages, who ARE able to afford to pay for broadband.

This could be arguged that we have massive monopolistic ISP's such as Eircom and British Telecom who refuse to make life easier.

I myself, was only able to even apply for broadband 9 weeks ago, and I certainly do not live in the middle of nowhere. To give you an example of how bad it is, I have yet to recieve an ADSL modem from the ISP i signed up to, im only on the internet cause I have my own hardware.

So im sorry for saying that "3rd worlds shouldnt have broadband" but I think they should honstly start in the most important place, at HOME.

Its great that they are doing these places it goes to show its possible to put an internet signal where theres no electrical socket to run a computer...

Pierce

Re:eire

[donutface]

Stop complaining, you live in the centre of Dublin, just go ahead and get ADSL, its only 30 euros a month. Have a look at some other countries who actually talk about how cheap Europe is for internet such as South Africa. In South Africa, with ADSL they cap their users at 3gb per month. If you want to download 100gb, its cheaper to fly to Hong Kong, and download it there, burn it to DVD's and bring it back home (Actual statistics, www.hellkom.co.za). You complain about monopolies, but you honestly dont know how good you have it, I thoroughly enjoy my ADSL in Cork, if your ISP sucks so much, pick up the bloody phone and change ISP.

Re:eire

[Ant P.]

30KB/s or 30kbps?

Either way, that makes mine seem good in comparison (used to be £60/mo for 512kbps).

Re:eire

[G Morgan]

Broadband usage is about 55% in the UK with availability around the 97% mark. BT dragged its heels early on and had an horifically spotty service during the early years but have really turned it around. Average available speeds is 4MB (which I'm on personally) with the used average being 1MB, BT are beginning to roll out their 24MB service in the cities. So the UK is by no means the poor relation in terms of broadband that it used to be. Prices are reasonable as well I pay £14 a month for my 4MB connection with a 50GB limit.

Re:eire

[MentalMooMan]

i can barely get above 30K [snip] when were meant to het up to 512K

Are you sure you're meant to get up to 512K? An upper-case K signifies KiloBytes, and a lower-case k means KiloBits. 512 KBytes would be a whopping (for the british isles) 4 megabits/s.
Now, 512 Kbits/s is still 64 KBytes/s, so you aren't getting the "full 512k".
Dial-up is (normally) 56 Kbits/s, which is a meagre 7 KBytes/s.

I've found that kilobits are normally used when talking about networking, as opposed to kilobytes when talking about storage.

Re:eire

[xtracto]

Ha, you are not alone

Since I moved to Liverpool, I have not been able to get broadband because the providers do not have "coverage" in my area

And the incredible thing is that I am at 5 blocks from the city centre and 4 blocks from the "University Of Liverpool". The only way I can get broadband is getting a telephone line, but screw it, I do not call anyone (I am not Briton) here, and I only need Skype and VoIpbuster for my long distance needs. Therefore, I refuse to give away 10 pounds a month PLUS the internet fee (which would be a different provider than BT as from what I have read they are really expensive and bad).

If government is talking about "internet for all" then wake me up when I can get into the net by connecting to a Wifi network from my home IN THE MIDDLE OF A MAJOR CITY, meanwhile, continue with the buzzwords

Re:eire

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though that is true, its also false. I know too many people in england who have 8mbit package, but can forget ever seeing the magical 1megabyte/s, or 800KB/s, or even 300KB/s because they live too far away and the line quality is poor.

Re:eire

[808140]

No, an upper case K signifies degrees Kelvin. The SI prefix kilo is always written as a lower case k, at least by knowledgeable people (it is worth noting that this rarely includes the marketing people who do the ads for electronic equipment, however). You are correct that bits and bytes are differentiated by case, though. kbps is kilobits per second, kBps is kilobytes per second.

As you pointed out, of course, essentially no one uses kBps for network speeds, for historical reasons, so if you see a 512k connection or a 2M connection or whatever, the implicit unit ommitted for brevity is bits and not bytes.

Cheers...

Re:eire

[hughk]

Its a last mile issue. WiFi in a high density area may have a range less than 50 metres if you are lucky. Someone is still going to have to wire up a *lot* of 802.11b/g routers and the users pay for the infrastructure.

Telephony means there is copper going into your house which other stuff can ride on. It doesn't need to be a telephone line. It can even be cable tv.

If you want true wireless, then you have the option of 3G (works in most city centres), but the pricing there is more in the direction of business users.

The question is, what KIND of internet?

[Opportunist]

"Internet for all" is a bold statement. I just doubt our politicians have a clue what they're talking about here.

What is "tha intarweb" anyway? What do they mean? That everyone should have the means (i.e. connection speed, host space etc) to actually set up a server themselves?

Oh. It's just "access to the internet". Shouldn't be that hard, a dumb terminal with telnet will do.

Oh, you mean more than that? Can you be a little bit MORE precise what is meant with "access to the internet"?

My very personal and biased guess is "enough access that even the dumbest person can order crap online".

Re:The question is, what KIND of internet?

[maxwell demon]

Of course, everyone should have the ability to run his own internet! :-)

Re:The question is, what KIND of internet?

[Jens Egon]

This website is maintained by the Commission.

They say broadband, mentioning VoIP and television.

Re:The question is, what KIND of internet?

[BobVH]

In Belgium, this basically comes down to a "cheap" computer (think dell-like with flat screens) with windows xp on, and I believe a one year subscription to broadband internet with some anti-virus plan.

I wish they had thought this over better because a simple computer with ubuntu on it would be much better in terms of userfriendlyness and security. Now they know that in a few months these computers will be filled with spyware because granny didn't buy a firewall.

Further more, these will miss the point completely I think, these computers will be bought by people who need an extra computer for the kids or so. These will not close the gap between poor and rich.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of the points above.

Re:The question is, what KIND of internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

My own personal and biased guess is that more digital infrastructure means easier implementation of Big-Brother.

Re:The question is, what KIND of internet?

[necro2607]

What is "tha intarweb" anyway?

You spelled "teh" wrong. ;)

Re:The question is, what KIND of internet?

[Opportunist]

Ahhhh, now it makes sense. Why can't they simply say "We wanna make sure that DRM can be enforced without a flaw, and we need bidirectional data transmission for that."

Re:The question is, what KIND of internet?

[morie]

Being a web-disadvantaged group is not all about having a connection, but about having the skills to use it.

I just returned from a conference on patient rights. A dutch committee headed by one of our capatains of (telecom) industry has produced a report saying that patients should be more empowered by letting them arrange stuff on the internet.

To bad your average patient is a 55+ female. give her a connection, and she won't use it, because she never learned how.

One organisation is providing some interactivity trough a TV set. That is working. Why? because chronic patients often can still watch TV while being uncapable of doing other things, and because they are black belts on the remote control.

W3C

[bsdluvr]

From TFA: According to recent research, 81 percent of Web sites in the United Kingdom are inaccessible to disabled people, while a separate report found that only 3 percent of European public-sector Web sites met W3C accessibility guidelines.

Good to see they are caring about accessibility and compatibility, because those two are often overlooked when talking about internet coverage. They are actually talking about 90% of the population, and not just 90% geographical coverage.

Re:W3C

[mr_mischief]

By 90% of the population, they likely mean far less than 90% geographical coverage. People aren't uniformly distributed geographically.

Re:W3C

[revery]

If I'm not mistaken, 90% broadband coverage based on geography would almost always translate to a higher percentage of people than 90% of the population.

Re:W3C

[chad.koehler]

That depends on the 90% of the geography that you pick. How much of the U.S. (percentage geographically) is taken up by Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, North & South Dakota.... etc. Leaving out the large population centers (New York, West Coast Cities, Chicago).... I know that is not likely the case here because broadband coverage is obviously already pretty good in the large population centers, but I digress.

Re:W3C

[DragonWriter]

If I'm not mistaken, 90% broadband coverage based on geography would almost always translate to a higher percentage of people than 90% of the population.

Its quite easy to 90% of either with far less than 90% of the other in most places. 90% geography is only guaranteed to mean 90%+ of the population if you require it to be the most populated 90% of the geography.

but no IE for them!

[madnuke]

Go to love Windows XP Home N edition which no one actualy uses, I wonder if they will favour open source in this choice as Microsoft will hardly back them now after the court skirmishes.

As long as U.S. citizens can afford it

[unity100]

Yea. In 10 years in U.S. the people to exchange ideas will be the ones who are able to pay for it.

Which will probably mean the big corporations, their owners, or their top management and lobbyists.

Re:As long as U.S. citizens can afford it

[Chicken04GTO]

I'm confused how to came to the conclusion that only big business will be able to afford to access the internet. Please enlighten me. Your drawing huge conclusions based upon a few carriers like AT&T and whomever crying about not making enough money to OMGZERS only Bill Gates can afford to chat or post online anymore.

Re:As long as U.S. citizens can afford it

[Golias]

Besides, pretty much everybody in the US can already use the Internet for free. We have these things called public libraries. Most people live within walking distance of one, and most of them have computers available with Internet access, as well as a WiFi hub for anybody with a laptop and a card.

On top of that, a lot of places leave wide-open WiFi in every major city all over the world. I've found WEP-free connections in both Ely, Minnesota and Tokyo, Japan.

All this "Internet Disadvantaged" crap is nonsense.

Re:As long as U.S. citizens can afford it

[Gyga]

Thing is, in the rural areas (places that don't have DSL in many places) libraries are far from walking distance. If I want to go to a public library I have to drive several miles down a busy highway. School libraries are closed to the public. And once I get to the library I have to share one of two computers with everyone else. Also there is no wifi where I live.

Re:As long as U.S. citizens can afford it

[Chicken04GTO]

share a computer in the library? the horror. you must be so oppressed!!!

Re:As long as U.S. citizens can afford it

[Golias]

Well, if you live out where your nearest neighbor is a half-mile away, nothing is within easy walking distance... But that's the trade-off for living out in the country.

You get away from it all, but you're away from it all.

Re:As long as U.S. citizens can afford it

[pluther]

If I want to go to a public library I have to drive several miles down a busy highway ... And once I get to the library I have to share one of two computers with everyone else. Also there is no wifi where I live.

And you did all that just to post that comment?

Re:As long as U.S. citizens can afford it

[Gyga]

No I am one of the luckier ones that due to bellsouth's messed up logic has DSl but down the street they don't.

Re:As long as U.S. citizens can afford it

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, the public libraries where, thanks to something called "The Patriot Act" everything you do (every page you visit, every book you check out, every email you send) is monitored b the federal government. Sure to promote free exchange of ideas, huh?

Re:As long as U.S. citizens can afford it

[ciggieposeur]

Most people live within walking distance of one,

If by "most people" you mean "people living within two miles of a public library", sure.

The United States had 9074 public libraries" as of 2001. It also has 3,537,441 square miles in total. Assuming no overlap in public libraries, (9074*3.14159*2^2) = 114027 square miles of "walkable" library coverage, or 3.2% of the total land area.

Only about 6% of the land of the United States is actually used for residence.

The absolute upper limit of "percentage of people living in the United States who can walk to a public library" is thus 3.2 / 5.5 = 58% .

Re:As long as U.S. citizens can afford it

[ciggieposeur]

Doh, made a mistake. Actually there are 16,298 total physical library outlets (including branches but excluding bookmobiles). Assuming perfect coverage, practically everyone CAN walk to a public library.

However, MY nearest public library is further than two miles away, and I live in a ~80,000 population town. So perfect coverage isn't.

Internet shouldn't be for all

[Zweideutig]

The Internet already is available to too many. It has become so affordable (sometimes even free to the end user) that we end up with the poor having the same access as other more financially responsible members of society. The problem is that Internet access gives users the ability to broadcast their ideas, literary works, etc. with minimum investment via personal web servers, blog sites, "free" hosts, etc. If "publishing" content became significantly more expensive, the ratio of commercial content to personally-created content would by higher. This is a good thing for everyone.

Re:Internet shouldn't be for all

[Anonymous Coward]

poor == financially irresponsible? /me kicks zweeedelhimer's (whatever) ass

Re:Internet shouldn't be for all

[RobotRunAmok]

The Internet already is available to too many. It has become so affordable (sometimes even free to the end user) that we end up with the poor having the same access as other more financially responsible members of society.

Yeah, that's what I want to read: Just the literature produced by financially responsible members of society. How did you know? We must be soulmates.

Ideally, we could find a way to take the pencils and wordprocessors away from anyone who doesn't shower daily, too. Our campaign motto could be, "Clean, Fiscally Responsible Stories for Clean, Fiscally, Responsible People!"

Can you imagine the literary heights to which our well-to-do society could soar?! Wow.

And for an encore, we could go around to all the hotels nationwide and replace the Gideon Bibles with the latest issue of Golf Digest...

Re:Internet shouldn't be for all

[bombadier_beetle]

I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death my right to be entertained by the outrage over it.

Re:Internet shouldn't be for all

[drinkypoo]

Don't worry, the tiered internet will make sure that you never read anything that's not sponsored anyway, because it takes too long to load.

Re:Internet shouldn't be for all

[Frightening]

I think he was being sarcastic. Otherwise you are right and he should be shot in the balls.

Re:Internet shouldn't be for all

[Anonymous Coward]

And for an encore, we could go around to all the hotels nationwide and replace the Gideon Bibles with the latest issue of Golf Digest...

Ha, fuck Greenpeace, this is the charity I donate to now!

Re:Internet shouldn't be for all

[Anonymous Coward]

If "publishing" content became significantly more expensive, the ratio of commercial content to personally-created content would by higher. This is a good thing for everyone.

So, idiot, explain to us how financial barriers to "publishing" in other media encourage higher quality content. Say, for example, Hollywood, where the financial barriers are exceptionally high.

Re:Internet shouldn't be for all

[mjwx]

Yes, Internet shouldn't be for all, You should stay the hell off it so I dont have to suffer your stupidity.

Poor =! Financially irresponsible. Poor for most of the worlds poor == war || no natural resources || no state (or parent) sponsored education || corrupt government.

Not everyone has parents that payed for everything AC.

Since when did poor become a derogatory statement. They didn't choose to be poor (most of the worlds poor live in third world countries with corrupt governments, few natural resources and no educational infrastructure) unlike you AC who chose don't live there and did choose to be an arsehole.

Besides Anonymous Coward vs. zweeedelhimer. I'd bet against AC.

Re:Internet shouldn't be for all

[Anonymous Coward]

If "publishing" content became significantly more expensive, the ratio of commercial content to personally-created content would by higher. This is a good thing for everyone.

Don't you find it ironic to post such a comment on a website which thrives thanks to the content of its community? People flock to slashdot.org not because of the articles (whose quality sometimes leave to be desired), but because they enjoy reading the opinions from strangers (i.e. personally created content).

The Internet already is available to too many. It has become so affordable (sometimes even free to the end user) that we end up with the poor having the same access as other more financially responsible members of society.

I will give you this, though: I could certainly benefit from not having to read comments full of arrogance and bigotry like this quote of yours... Thankfully, there's a moderation system here that takes care of that too, so I see no more reasons why I would want to see more advertising and marketing drivel, as there is already enough of it on the Internet now.

DL

[Wellington Grey]

The EC has also committed to putting new measures in place to halve exclusion rates in skills and digital literacy by 2010.

The only people I ever hear use words like 'digital literacy' are the people most clueless about computers.

-Grey

Re:DL

[maxwell demon]

That's why they demand more "digital literacy". They hope they might finally get it.

Re:DL

[Miseph]

Actually, they just want to be able to read what their kids are saying on AIM... to the "digitally illiterate" the phrase "omg we shud lik go 2 teh mol n bi stuf wit r rents $ thet ew rnt alowd waer wen wer hom" is complete gibberish. What they fail to realize is that the problem isn't their ability to read, it's their children's inability to not write like they were born feet first.

Re:DL

[BlackShirt]

good remark. :)

Somewhere in France...

[Anonymous Coward]

All your Internet are belong to us!

This is probably a step in a wider plan....

[Marsmensch]

Several european countries (with the scandinavians pretty far in the lead) are moving as many government services as possible online in order to save on paperwork and other costs. However, especially in Denmark, they observed that this leads to the problem of the elderly and other subgroups not having proper access to those services, or the adequate ability to use the tools necessary to interact with public services.

This is increasingly going to be an issue in countries where you can't, for instance, pay your taxes without online, and universal access, if it proves cheaper than the amount saved by streamlining other services, is clearly the way to go.

Re:This is probably a step in a wider plan....

[TheBogie]

I don't think they will be able to put many government services online. The government workers in france will riot when they find out their paper shuffling jobs have been replaced by a computer. Then the youth will strike until the evil "job stealing" computers are removed. Of course, chirac will back down like he always does.

In france, they would be better off buying air conditioners for their elderly rather than buying them computers. It might be a hot summer.

Re:This is probably a step in a wider plan....

[donatzsky]

Wish I had mod points. If ever there was a true comment, this would be it.
I mean, just look at the CPE brouhaha for an idea.
Happy times when the EU finally cuts the farming subsidies.

Re:This is probably a step in a wider plan....

[dkf]

The government workers in france will riot when they find out their paper shuffling jobs have been replaced by a computer.

But computers don't promote efficiency by themselves. They can also codify stupidity, inefficiency and reading slashdot^W^Wslacking. And there will be more paper to shuffle, because everyone will insist on printing out everything several times just to see how things look different if you change the font on the page numbers of the forms by a few pixels. If people don't want to be efficient, they won't be.

Web != Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Web is a subset of Internet

Hurm...

[Churla]

The more I look at Myspace and see what it's doing to a good segment of society the less and less I think "Internet for all" is such a great idea.

Call my crazy and all I'm ready for it.

I suggest you research the US situation..

[plasmacutter]

at least you wont get blocked from sites because they don't bribe the isp's like us US citizens.

I'll take 30k max over a non neutral net.

Re:I suggest you research the US situation..

[808140]

Sure he will. Or did you think he'll somehow manage to avoid all the computers that are on the internet but connected via a US backbone (ie, telco?) We invented the internet and sadly many of the world's most popular sites and servers are still hosted on US soil (which means they are connected to the net by a US telco, and will thus be subject to net non-neutrality, should it become a reality.)

This is one of the many reasons this net non-neutrality stuff is so dangerous: it will affect far more than just US citizens. You might think that this will create an economic incentive for US companies to relocate to Europe or elsewhere -- and in some cases it might, taking US jobs with it. But in most cases, the business people will take a long hard look at their market and realize that most of their customers are Americans -- and no matter where your server is, if an American wants to access you site, your packets need to traverse US telco lines. So not just American businesses will be affected, but anybody that wants American access. Americans spend more money and save less than essentially anyone else on the planet -- in the words of the Economist, the world is addicted to American demand. Net non-neutrality will have far reaching economic implications not just at home but abroad, as well.

It's incredible how short sighted it all is.

EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[unity100]

Huh ?

In u.s., big businesses legalize almost everything to meet their ends, in expense of the people. Which means the MAJORITY of the nation.

They BUY lobbyists, these MISLEAD people, they DONATE to congressmen, these vote for their 'masters' instead of the constituents, and the big business gets its way.

When someone comes up and says "Hey, theyre reducing the people to dust. They are taking away opportunities from us. They are controlling us. There should be regulations", PAID lobbyists and 'think tank's come up and howl that "business should be free, hands off business and hands off shit and that". And they get their way. S/he/they who warn about the danger are labeled "fuckin liberal green commies". But IN THE END what happens is that THE MAJORITY of the people, EVEN the ones who label opposition DOES NOT get anything out of what big corporations do, they are just messed up further.

And here we have europe. There are HORDES of "fuckin liberal green commies" in power all around the europe, and in european commissions.

And these "fuckin liberal commies" blurt out HORDES of regulations, laws, directives each year, the rights of PEOPLE, the EQUALITY in rights and opportunities, the DEMOCRACY is preserved and furthered AND YET BUSINESS CONTINUES TO GROW ALL OVER EUROPE.

Here we have another example. Small steps adding up to an utopic internet, and no surprise; again in europe.

While u.s. is being HERDED in the other way by AT&T, europe goes on the road that leaves internet as we know it and furthers it.

Yet, still u.s. people do not rise up to the fact that, if you let businesses TOO MUCH FREEDOM, some get too big and TAKE CONTROL OF SOCIETY.

And whenever someone points out the difference between the status of u.s. and eu, its labeled as 'eu>us crap'

Well, its your problem before ours. We arent the ones who are being governed BY AT&T.

And i would wish the people who are annoyed with the way things are going in u.s. would migrate to europe.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[Twiceblessedman]

"And i would wish the people who are annoyed with the way things are going in u.s. would migrate to europe." Why go all the way to europe when canada is just above them? ;)

excellent idea

[roguegramma]

Blind men DO have these touchpatch that vubrate up and down.
Might actaully be more interesting, if you ctach my drift .. /dc

Let the phishing begin!

[Numbah One]

as usual, politicians are suffering from Rectal Cranial Inversion Syndrome. perhaps the following should be asked of these paragons or virtue:

- how will the "Web-disadvantaged" connect to the Internet? will the government supply some of those $100 PCs that are being developed for the third world?
- who is going to handle the tech support when these folks run into problems?
- what happens when these folks, who don't have a lot of experience on the web, get e-mail from some poor woman from Nigeria who is trying to get $10Million out of her country and is willing to give a kind person 10% or 20% if they would send her their bank account numbers? will the government reimburse them?

i think it would be great if the web became like the phone system where nearly everyone has some type of low-cost access if they want it and it has a fairly simple interface. But we're not even close at this point. the web is barely 10-12 years old. how long did it take to roll out phone service to the current level?

Re:Let the phishing begin!

[pe1chl]

What makes you think that disabled persons must be poor, helpless and stupid? And why wouldn't that be the case for an average person?

Re:Let the phishing begin!

[rdoger6424]

$100 pcs

You mean $100 laptops. $100 pcs have been around for a while.

Re:Let the phishing begin!

[masklinn]

Uh, the goal is that everyone has the ability to get broadband (is within broadband covered area), not that everyone gets broadband for free.

If only the U.S.......

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't have a Duopoly that's government supported then we could do the same thing. I seem to recall some grants going out to help expand broadband coverage It was used to upgrade their own network (read replacing fiber lines with newer fiber lines) instead of putting it towards the expansion. In the areas we service (almost the entire state of California) there hasn't been hardly any expansion at all.

I hate to say it, but I would honestly like to see a government body take over the control of the physical copper lines. That would be the only way to break up this monopoly in a way that doesn't allow it to come back. No one company should be able to control the copper as well as the services going over the copper. Imagine if only one company was allowed to have trucks capable of carrying water. And then we turn around and give that same company all the land that has drinkable water on it and tell them "now play nice" but don't do anything when they don't play nice. What do you really think that company that's responsible to stock holders and NOT to the public that needs the water will do? Probably not the best anology but still gets the point accross.

Re:If only the U.S.......

[robertjw]

Imagine if only one company was allowed to have trucks capable of carrying water...

We do this all the time. Don't know about where you live, but there is only one set of pipes that bring water to my house, only one cable company in town and only one electric company. There is no reason a private company can't own a utility and have service work adequately well with minimal oversight. If the government can't oversee and regulate what's going on now, what makes you think that public ownership would result in better service?

Re:If only the U.S.......

[Luscious868]

Oh please. Look at your phone bill the next time it comes and notice the Universal Access fee. That fee is levied by the government and is supposed to be used to provide Internet access to the poor and disadvantaged. I'm sure it's helped some but it hasn't happened everyone in need and probably never will because the US government fucks up pretty much everything that it tries to do except for collecting taxes. When a government enacts any program to "help" a certain group of people you can pretty much guarantee that a good portion of said group won't receive any help, a greater number will receive some help but the problem won't be fixed and a whole bunch of government contractors and regular citizens who figure out a why to scam the program will make a shit load in the process. See the Hurricane Katrina relief effort for a prime example.

You know who really needs help in this country? The middle class taxpayer who is getting fucked in the ass by both the upper 1 percent who pay no taxes and by the government who taxes the ever loving shit out of them in order to help the disadvantaged.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[plasmacutter]

And i would wish the people who are annoyed with the way things are going in u.s. would migrate to europe.

This is why the schools in the us are so abysmal at instilling knowledge of foreign languages. Less people will move if they cant speak the language.

That said, europe is not this utopian landscape you state. EUCD anyone? how about the fact that the EC has even less accountability than the corporate bought US legislative bodies? Add to that the continued evidence that the EC is becomming a us lapdog, and that many european nations have placed themselves at the beck and call of corporate interests (operation X and Y against "internet piracy" anyone?) and I don't see the EU as being the right place to go.

Canada has demonstrated far more in terms of true liberal leaning and resistance to corporate and US pressure. as a bonus they speak english there XD

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[John Nowak]

And i would wish the people who are annoyed with the way things are going in u.s. would migrate to europe. What, like a bird mate? Shall I come back in three months? I think that's just called a vacation.

sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry... I didn't see your tongue in your cheek at first read.

Now I know better.

Fiberlines, but no broadband - welcome to Europe

[stirz]

The news.com article goes "Rural areas are still underserved, according to the Commission, with about 60 percent penetration.". I wouldn't call the German capital a "rural area". In wide areas of eastern Germany and it's former capital, telephony is mainly based on fiber optics that were installed shortly after the reuinification replacing ordinary telephone-cables. It's rather bizarre when you live there because ISPs refuse to offer you more than dial-up (64K). If you are "lucky" and still have some ordinary copper-cored cable, you might get a decent DSL connection although fiber should allow "real" broadband.


regards,

Stirz

Ireland is crap...

[all my nicks are tak]

...for web access definitly, hopefully it'll improve. Here in Finland things are pretty good. I've had broadband access here for a number of years and in this city there are a number of free wireless networks which I can connect to. Some pubs even give free wireless access to customers. Ireland is years behind places like Finland, or Germany for example.

Re:Ireland is crap...

[Das Modell]

Good? Well, depends on what you compare it to. I don't think 27 euros a month for 512/512 kbits is exactly cutting edge, or cheap. I don't know why it's so expensive... either it's caused by the lack of competition (we've got, what, three or four ISPs?) or it's some sort of infrastructure problem. I hear Koreans get crazy fast lines for less than money than what I pay for my 512/512.

I just don't have the money for bullshit like 45 euros a month for 8M/1M (the actual bill comes every two months, so I have to pay 90 euros at once!), on top of the inane television license (51 euros for three months!). Jesus pissing christ.

Re:Ireland is crap...

[EMacAonghusa]

(me again under proper nick) I get 1Mb connection for less than 30. It's affordable and it's fast enough for surfing, no it ain't cutting edge but it's good. And i'm comparing this to Ireland where a heck of a lot of people have simply zero access to broadband.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[Olix]

However, The Shadowrun setting is really cool, and I can't see such an interesting future arising from Europe. You might just about pull a World of Darkness out of the EU, but I think AAA corporations would be sadly lacking.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[drinkypoo]

I've thought about this already and I have the answer in two words: frozen north.

neither, with our publish restrictions(copyright)

[Anonymous Coward]

Since in the US and in the world have went from 14 year publishing monopoly to todays 120 year publishing monopoly, the free exchange of ideas not yet in reach. We need another freedom revolution to limit these monopolies (again).

That's because broadband isn't easy

[Sycraft-fu]

Or cheap. The problem is that too many people, politicians and techies alike, see the speeds you can get over a small area for cheap and think it just scales up. You can buy an 8 port gigabit switch for $70USD, so what's the problem? Well it turns out that the larger scale things go to, the more expensive it gets. That $70 switch is fine for 8 ports on a LAN, but you cannot chain 100 of them together to get an 800 port switch for just $7000. Turns out for something like that you are talking maybe a $7,000,000 switch (or more).

Thus what I see plans for all too often is to create essentially a big LAN or WAN if you like. Something that has a lotf of bandwidth available to the end users, but not the backbone or uplinks to support it. The end result is that users have a 'fast' connection that works slow.

Even if the internal infastructure is there, you still need fast uplinks to other networks. I've seen a few broadband providers, the Scandanivan BBB comes to mind, that function kind of like a university campus. They seem to have adiquate internal bnadwidth, they get fast speeds to each other, but they get slow transfers to servers I run that are on extremely fast and well connected networks. They have all the WAN parts working, but lack the uplinks to other networks to get that full bandwidth to anywhere.

That's what I'd worry about happening with a government funded ISP. They are of course always going to be under pressure to keep costs low, since nobody likes paying more taxes and that will probably result in severe oversubscription. I mean you can, technicly, pack 10-20 dialup users over a single 64k frame relay. It will work, but if more than 2 or 3 users are download files it'll get pretty slow and bogged down. I worry that you'll see a lot of that, but on a faster scale. Users will be given "10MB" or whatever broadband for free, but unless it's 3am you won't see but a fraction of it because there will be an inadiquate backend and/or uplink to handle the traffic.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right... cause, you know, New York state (with pretty much the same climate as Southwestern Ontario) is a great frozen wasteland.

It's also pretty awesome how when you drive from Seattle up to Vancouver, the temperature plummets as soon as you cross the 49th parallel. I love how the cold air knows which side of the border to stay on.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[drinkypoo]

I wouldn't live in WA or NY (or points northward) either. Most of the US is nowhere I'd want to live. OR is about as far north as I'm willing to go (I'm a CA native - you can say that makes me soft, I say it's given me an appreciation for the good life.)

Damn socialists and their public libraries

[Anonymous Coward]

We should let the free market handle libraries. Free libraries for everyone is socialism.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[Obi-w00t]

I know that some people here in the UK do not really care about their EU representatives (not sure how the other European nations fare) but that does not mean that they are unaccountable. Also I would call the EU far from a US lap dog, they have conflicted with the US over America putting tariffs on European steel and got the tariff lifted. They also conflicted with the US about giving arms to China (Condoleezza Rice highlighted this on a visit to China - quite an odd place to bring that up, one would think). They have not backed down. I also could not find this "Operation X and Y", and I can't find much evidence suggesting the EU at the beck and call of corporations. It may be true that Berlusconi was corrupt but generally there is little pandering for corporations in the major European nations, the same can be said for the EU.

Plus in countries like Germany and France, English is taught as a second language in nearly all schools (something Chirac isn't too pleased about, I hear). Oh yeah and there is a small group of islands off the French coast that speak English. I think it's called the United Kingdon.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[just_another_sean]

I've thought about this already and I have the answer in two words: frozen north.

You're one of those guys who shows up in Toronto with skis in July aren't you?

And here I thought the Canadians were just joking about that one... eh.

IS that

[ElephanTS]

Web-disadvantaged groups

Like AOL browser running on Windows ME? I'm trying to think of worse . . .

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[robertjw]

I have the answer in two words: frozen north.

Global Warming

heh

[Colendus]

lol, internet.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[robertjw]

In u.s., big businesses legalize almost everything to meet their ends, in expense of the people. Which means the MAJORITY of the nation.

Now I'm as paranoid as the next guy, but to say businesses legalize 'almost everything' is a bit of an exaggeration. There are plenty of laws on the books that business doesn't like, things like the SEC, FCC, HIPPA, GLBA, OSHA and the EPA. There is no doubt a good amount of government corruption and laws, like the DMCA, being pushed through by big business, but 'almost everything' is extreme.

But IN THE END what happens is that THE MAJORITY of the people, EVEN the ones who label opposition DOES NOT get anything out of what big corporations do, they are just messed up further.

And the small business owner gets the shaft on both ends. The issues that the big corporations don't care about get bypassed and the liberal commies make life hell for the little guy.

Yet, still u.s. people do not rise up to the fact that, if you let businesses TOO MUCH FREEDOM, some get too big and TAKE CONTROL OF SOCIETY.

Like who? Name ONE company that has taken control of society in recorded history? Sure, several have had significant influence, perhaps more than they should have, but historically governments have been much more oppressive than corporations have. Personally I'm much more afraid of a Dictator than I am a CEO.

Sorry for the soapbox

[Bombula]

I hate to be trite, but the Internet will only "be for all" when it is free. By the same token, water and electricity are not "for all" any more than phones, computers, and dentistry are. When our society commits to providing basic services like the Internet (and water and electricity) in the same way it provides schools and roads - via government - only THEN will these things really "be for all."

Until then, these things are just like everything else: available only to those can afford them, and that leaves far, far, far too many people behind.

Re:Sorry for the soapbox

[Just Another Poster]

When our society commits to providing basic services like the Internet (and water and electricity) in the same way it provides schools and roads - via government - only THEN will these things really "be for all."

No thanks. I don't feel like having an Internet connection that works like our government schools, and in the same condition as a lot of our roads.

Re:Sorry for the soapbox

[Bombula]

I believe that's why we have private schools.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[MisterBuggie]

Erm, actually, I don't know where you got that comment about Chirac from. The govt is currently trying to increase students' proficiency in different domains, including english...

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You tell that commie!

*does the Libertarianism dance*

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[Minwee]

"New York state is a great frozen wasteland."

I see you have been to Buffalo.

What does posting online do ?

[unity100]

Nothing.

You, me a few hundred others will read the comments we posted here. ALMOST NONE will act on them.

What matters is the big reach. Now hype bloggers can do that, popular nonprofit organizations can do that, but, when at&t does its thing, only the one who can pay big bandwidth exthortion fees will be able to do that.

It is not posting online that matters. It is reaching millions that matters ...

If it was possible

[unity100]

it would have been great wouldnt it ? We would just fly to wherever we please.

Canada? Europe?

[dj245]

You mean to tell me that Canada isn't considered part of Europe? I always thought it was lumped in with Greenland.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[unity100]

Oh well, do i really need to provide an example ?

u.s. is already being run by oil interest backed cronies that have started a war to grab oil fields for those groups. And the deals in iraq are being handed over to these group members sometimes without any competitive intervention. They have grabbed the government, they have started a war, they have passed phletora of laws limiting personal freedom, and u.s. citizens are dying in a remote war for those oil interests to prosper more.

Should need be, i can expand such examples back into known history of mankind.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[robertjw]

They have grabbed the government, they have started a war, they have passed phletora of laws limiting personal freedom, and u.s. citizens are dying in a remote war for those oil interests to prosper more.

Huh, I seem to remember voting for a president. I also seem to remember a majority voting for an incumbent President that intended to keep the war going. I won't say the oil interests aren't influencing some of the decisions that are made, but I don't see a big groundswell of citizens protesting the war. Saying the oil interests have CONTROL is a bit extreme, don't you think? Perhaps they control your life, but I'm pretty sure I still have quite a bit of wiggle room in mine.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[unity100]

On the contrary ??

Who funded the advertising campaigns that have enlisted hordes of unaware public to bush camp ? (oil camp in fact) ? Who have rigged 2004 elections with what resources ? Diebold machines ?

This is just like the telcos spending $10 m in a jiffy for advertisement only, not counting the fees paid to bought lobbyists and 'donations' to congressmen.

It is just the same is in any other country - in my country too, who has the money defines who will win the next election, by donations that leads to publicity spendings for the party.

In u.s. case, its far worse in that the business rampages unchecked there - ie the thing you can purchase paid 'lobbyists' to effect congressional and national opinion, perpetuating lies or facts nomatter what, absolutely appalling for me. The absurdity is in that it is acceptable to your public. If that would be in my country, the people who were paid lobbyists would be disregarded as 'henchmen', despite my country having a shorter experience with democracy.

Re:Fiberlines, but no broadband - welcome to Europ

[ocelotbob]

If the fiber and switches are sufficiently ancient, then they probably simply don't support faster speeds. You've still got to have the infrastructure in place to support hundred megabit fiber; such switches were prohibitively expensive back in 1990 when the modernization happened.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[robertjw]

Who funded the advertising campaigns that have enlisted hordes of unaware public to bush camp? (oil camp in fact)?

It's actually fairly well accepted the Bush won on a variety of issues, not the least of which was that we wern't sure if his opponent was actually alive, bolstered by the so called 'religious right'. His stand on Gay Marriage, Abortion and any number of other issues were contributing factors also. It's possible the oil companies were the funding behind advertisments and publicity (I think campaign donations are all public record), but nobody paid the democrats to run a spineless wimp that couldn't even come out and say he was actually against the war and would bring the US soldiers home. I might have voted for him if he had.

Who have rigged 2004 elections with what resources? Diebold machines?

That's just paranoia. I can't be 100% sure there was no tampering involved, but if there was it was at the local level. Bush didn't need tampering to win the election - the Democrats pretty much beat themselves.

...the thing you can purchase paid 'lobbyists' to effect congressional and national opinion, perpetuating lies or facts nomatter what, absolutely appalling for me. The absurdity is in that it is acceptable to your public. If that would be in my country, the people who were paid lobbyists would be disregarded as 'henchmen', despite my country having a shorter experience with democracy.

Not sure where your country is, but political corruption is hardly unique. Paid lobbyists are one of the BEAUTIFUL things about the US. It's a free country. If I can get a job walking around Washington encouraging government officials to support my platform that is perfectly legal. Nothing anybody can do, at least not until I break the law with illegal contributions, fraud, etc.. like Jack Abramoff. The problem isn't the lobbyists, it's the elected officials that listen to them. Unfortunately their constituencies don't typically know or care when the officials are being influenced, or at least don't express their displeasure at the voting booth.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[unity100]

Bush was installed at the head of gop, because there was already a conservative tendency around, and naturally it was republicans, not democrats who were going to be in an advantageous position. The oil interests, along with the other groups saw that, and took the opportunity. naturally. Had enough money been spent by liberal circles, not gay marriage, not abortion would be in agenda but much different things. It is a matter of spending. You have enough cash to let go, you set the agenda.

Come on man. It does not neccessitate a controlled experiment to guess that there has been rigging on some voting machines, machines which even totally irrelevant ordinary hardware can mess with their wireless communication. And to boot, there is no paper proof of votes. In murder cases such level of evidence locks people in jail.

Nay. Lobbying is not a good thing. Remember gaming. What it was in 90es. Compare what it has become now as it have been made into an industry.

Same goes with everyting. If you turn something into a multi billion dollar industry, it metamorphs into something totally different from what it is. Lobbying is now something what is lawyers like are in your country. Pay, and if need be, they will be your goebbels. Lies, deceit, anything to meet the end. Its neither true, nor healthy. Spend enough money, and in 2 years youll be able to persuade conservatives to gay marriage. This is not true.

AMERIKKKA SUCKS!!!11

[Anonymous Coward]

BOOO YOOROP YAYYYY EUROPE!

Those American's sure are fat, etc...

Just getting it in there before our uneducated, socialist European cousins do. (Of course, that's redundant; socialism and a lack of education go hand in hand)

AVe.Q

[Furmy]

The internet is really, really good...

The internet.

[RazzleDazzle]

Oooohh... the internet. I hear that have it on computers now-a-days.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[Just Another Poster]

This is why the schools in the us are so abysmal at instilling knowledge of foreign languages. Less people will move if they cant speak the language.

A more likely explanation is that this is because North America isn't as balkanized as Europe.

Another is that English speakers don't have incentives to learn French or German like French and German speakers do to learn English.

Start enforcing policies

[kezze]

In many ways, you're right. A good example of this is that all government institutions had to switch to "Electronic Billing", which used a XML format called OIOXML. By 2005, I think, government institutions were not allowed to accept paper bills of any kind. Only two cities/kommuner actually took this all the way: Odder Kommune is one of them. Every paper bill they recieved, would be put in an envelope and returned to the sender. I believe it's the toughest, but still best way to teach the suppliers "if you want your money, upgrade your systems".
From what I have heard, it is not efficient yet, but if the public administration would start enforcing policies like that, it would be much less time-wasting.

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of this goes back to the Cold War.

After the Second World War Europe had to basically rebuild itself, and it did so (mostly) with foresight about the importance of business, state and population, and created a balance between them (hell, even the Soviets at least took each into consideration). The result was that the state got a lot of power over important matters (and the Soviets, the less important ones), for example the Welfare State in Britain with it's National Health Service, etc.

In the US there was no need to reorganise anything, since there was no rebuilding to be done. However, the US government explicitly blocked any attempts to create a Welfare State since the US felt a need to prove to the world that letting business take over everything was better than letting the state take over everything.

In the East there was total state control (socialism), in the West there was total commercial control (capitalism) whilst Western Europe didn't really have anything to prove, so they chose a sensible middle-ground.

The problems with the Soviet strategy were immediately clear, but there are still problems with the US's strategy, but they are only now becoming clear (in fact, since the domination of Trusts in the US during the 1920s it has been obvious that a purely business-based state is not a good thing, and legislation did, and still does, exist in the US to keep a limited control on business)

As RMS once said, the point of any society is to improve the lives of it's members. Capitalism is a good way to do this, since it creates a race towards this end, and competition encourages people to reach the end quicker. However, business itself is ONLY concerned with the race, not the point behind the race (to better human kind), and therefore if it is easier to merely pummel your opponents into the ground so that they don't win, that is the best strategy for a business to take, and nobody ever crosses the finishing line. Therefore controls must be in place over businesses to ensure the race continues.

Since many in the US have never known anything other than capitalism, this has become the only way for them. All of this "Business should be free" talk is stupid, since it's advocators are not going back to fundamental principles. Why the hell do businesses exist in the first place? As a convenient way to improve people's lives. Therefore doing something for the sake of a business, at the expense of improving lives, is utterly wrong. I recall an instance of new US laws being introduced to help protect recently freed black slaves, and lobbyists managed to extend them to include corporations. Therefore corporations obtained the same rights as human beings in the US, and in the next few decades hundreds of legal cases were filed by businesses taking advantage of these new laws, and only a handful by freed black slaves (for whom the laws were created).

This attitude in the US of capitalism-or-nothing is ridiculous and it is now becoming clear (since the Soviet Union is gone as an enemy, and the only enemy left is US citizens themselves) and now that it's purpose of creating a firm stance against socialism is gone, so too should it go. However, now there are people caught up in legal/management positions for these huge companies who do not see the sense in cutting back in order to improve lives. In the EU such tactics by a company would be unthinkable, and due to the EU's structure (cooperation by it's members) there is actually very little legislation which it could pass to help big business, since it's members would object. Therefore it can only really pass laws which it's members cannot possibly object to, which mainly involves human rights laws. This means that if any member country decides to allow big business to prevail over the general population's well being then the people's case can be taken up by the EU.

This system seems to be producing better results, and since Europe has much more experience with these issues (Europe actually has a history, whilst the US ma

Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ?

[dueyfinster]

First of all, its not the EC anymore, that name was changed to EU in 1992! You say the EU doesn't have accountability? How about the fact we elect people in the Parliament, and that anyone can bring a case to the highest court? Also that people actually sit and debate motions, and people get a good bollocking if they propose something bad? When does Bush sit in congress and get the arse ripped out of him for crap policys? Never. What about Canada's tax on cdr's, is that in no way leaning to corporate pressure (MPIAA/RIAA)???? In answer to that, every country bows to some corporte pressure, it has too, as they run a good segment of the economy. Also did it occur to you that most European nations did not support Iraq? I bet if they did, the US corporations would be a lot happier, they could pump more crude $$$$$$

MOD PARENT INSIGHTFUL + 5 - WONDERFUL INSIGHT

[unity100]

into the situation.

Re:Fiberlines, but no broadband - welcome to Europ

[hughk]

ISDN is available throughout the former DDR. This means a true 64K with the possibility of bundling 2 channels. ADSL at 2MB+ is available in towns (at least according to the German ISPs that I know), but perhaps not in all villages and there is also the possiblity of internet via your cable tv supplier. Cable TV is fairly ubiqitous in Germany with penetration down to the smaller villages. Many are providing broadband too.

Re:Fiberlines, but no broadband - welcome to Europ

[stirz]

ADSL at 2MB+ is available in towns, but perhaps not in all villages and there is also the possiblity of internet via your cable tv supplier.

My point was, in those areas, not only villages are affected. Look at Dresden, for example, a town which nobody would call "rural area" or so. Dresden is actually preparing for Wimax (babelfish-link) as no ISP seems to be willing to make use of the glass fiber. Quite similar situations in parts of Berlin, Potsdam and Halle, which are indeed no small villages :-)

Cable TV is fairly ubiqitous in Germany with penetration down to the smaller villages.

Oh yeah, the myth of cable :-) You know, there are actually ISPs in Germany offering broadband over TV-cable and it's true that a lot of households have access to the TV-cable. If you look at western Germany, for example the Ruhr area, only someresidents of Dortmund, Bochum, Duesseldorf and Cologne can actually go online via cable. Most towns in this populous area can only watch tv over cable. In the former GDR, most people stick to their satellite dish as cable has always been not very cheap in Germany and not very wide spread in the eastern part :-)

regards,

Stirz

Re:Fiberlines, but no broadband - welcome to Europ

[hughk]

Disclaimer, I have lived in Germany and still visit on almost a weekly basis.

At least in most bits, ADSL is still working. Fibre does go as far as the local exchange even if it doesn't go direct to individuals. Terminating fibre is expensive. Unless you are a company who is going to pay for a direct coupling, why should they deliver you fibre to your doorstep?

Wimax, last I heard was still 'being standardised' whilst the experiments are interesting, in the end, they are just that. Remember that WiMax like any wireless system is still bounded by the number of subscribers in the area.

When I'm in Germany, I stay in a small town in the Taunus. ADSL is fully rolled out (speeds up to 6Mb/s) and the local cable man (iesy) is pushing broadband. Indeed they do seem to be able to offer it in most bits of the Rhein-Main area. Lastly, having been screwed over for about 15 years of Solidaritaetszuschlag, why should the rest of Germany subsidize even more infrastructure reform?

Amazing inventions could come to light

[Kim Katrell]

I wonder, if a lot of rural people get online and share thier thoughts, what kind of collaborative ideas could evolve. Heck,one simple country guy (or girl) could post some truly revolutionary ideas and make for gloabal changes, that would otherwise never be know or heard. Davinci was just an extra aware country boy until he ended up in a place that would allow his ideas to be shared. Of course I look forward to people from everywhere sharing info and colaborating about what is going on in thier politics and such.