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Internet For All in Europe

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what-about-here dept.

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. "

14 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder how history will judge us by oni · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:I wonder how history will judge us by sploxx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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?)

    2. Re:I wonder how history will judge us by G+Morgan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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).

    3. Re:I wonder how history will judge us by masklinn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      "The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
    4. Re:I wonder how history will judge us by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    5. Re:I wonder how history will judge us by JSchoeck · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

  2. The question is, what KIND of internet? by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Funny

    "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.
  3. W3C by bsdluvr · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  4. This is probably a step in a wider plan.... by Marsmensch · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  5. Hurm... by Churla · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  6. Re:Internet shouldn't be for all by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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...

  7. Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ? by Twiceblessedman · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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? ;)

  8. Fiberlines, but no broadband - welcome to Europe by stirz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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

  9. Re:EU US bullshit ... Or Reality ? by Minwee · · Score: 3, Funny

    "New York state is a great frozen wasteland."

    I see you have been to Buffalo.