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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. "
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.
[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]
"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".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
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
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
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.
Slashdot: news from nerds.
poor == financially irresponsible? /me kicks zweeedelhimer's (whatever) ass
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'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
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.
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...
"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? ;)
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death my right to be entertained by the outrage over it.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
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.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
- 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?
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
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.
I don't preview or spellcheck.
"New York state is a great frozen wasteland."
I see you have been to Buffalo.