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New EU Rules Promise 100Mbps Broadband and Free Wi-Fi For All (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The European Commission has promised free Wi-Fi in every town, village, and city in the European Union, in the next four years. A new grant, with a total budget of 120 million euro, will allow public authorities to purchase state-of-the art equipment, for example a local wireless access point. If approved by the the European Parliament and national ministers the cash could be available before the end of next year. The commission has also set a target for all European households to have access to download speeds of at least 100Mbps by 2025, and has redefined Internet access as a so-called universal service, while removing obligations for old universal services such as payphones. It also envisions fully deploying 5G, the fifth generation of mobile communication systems, across the European Union by 2025. Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker made reference to many of these proposals while also promising to abolish roaming once and for all in his "State of the European Union" address on Wednesday morning.
Something those of us in the US would do well to emulate.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Want to use the municipal wifi? well, here's your DNS servers (no, you can't change them! Why would you even ask that citizen?)
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
yes and they never have banking crisis nor impending ones say in Italy and Germany, it's all wonderful.
need I remind everyone the U.S. federal reserve has bailed out the european banking system a few years ago?
... because Europeans do not see taxes as some evil boogeyman, but rather as a necessity to enjoy a good standard of living and not have to worry about bankrupting the entire family should they ever get cancer or if they want to send their kids to university.
And all Europeans think exactly alike too... And all of them love taxes!
Dirty little secret that Americans don't seem to understand, high taxes in a non-corrupt, non-military industrial complex dominated government pays for things like high quality roads, telecom and other infrastructure. Have you even visited Europe? Ever?
No need to wonder. Most WISPs are already switching to LTE from 802.11 WiFi
Although it's obviously untrue that EU politicians are not corrupt, it's a different form of corruption to the US one. The corruption in the EU is a power grab, while in the US it is a money grab.
That's why the US has such shitty public services. Massive amounts of US taxation end up going into the US military industrial complex, not only funding widespread death and destruction abroad but also lining the pockets of billionaires, instead of building a better country for US taxpayers.
The EU is corrupt too, but money for public welfare and national infrastructure is to a degree ringfenced and open to inspection. It's not a perfect system but it does keep most of the money where it belongs, paid by the people and used for the people, not to fund billionaires.
Alas we occasionally listen to the americans and help them fight their wars and pay into their war machine, but it tends not to last long because waging war has almost zero support among citizens of EU nations. We've had too much experience with war in the past, and have no love of it. It's really quite different to the outlook in the US.