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.

Comments

who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, since this is not communist Russia.. who's paying for this?

Re:who pays?

[pmontra]

Tax payers, so the people getting it. I already have 100 Mb/s fiber but it's ok to give it to others. Furthermore with 100 Mb/s everywhere I could start thinking to move into the countryside. What I don't understand is: only 120 M Euro? That's 20 cents per person so it's easy on taxpayers but is it enough to buy and operate the infrastructure?

Re: who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

The people, through taxes, most likely. And they will be happy to do it, 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.

Re: who pays?

[rubycodez]

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?

Re: who pays?

[houstonbofh]

... 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!

Re:who pays?

[alvinrod]

What I don't understand is: only 120 M Euro? That's 20 cents per person so it's easy on taxpayers but is it enough to buy and operate the infrastructure?

You are making the assumption that this is a well thought out and feasible plan, which it very well may not be.

If it were really that cheap and easy to do I would expect that some company would have already done so and charged everyone a few Euro for the service because if it's cost effective at an order of magnitude less cost, the profit margins would be obscene.

I suspect that important details have been overlooked which add significant cost to the project, or the person who initially proposed the idea has no idea what this should actually cost to implement.

Re:who pays?

[Bugler412]

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?

Re:who pays?

[ruir]

EC is non-corrupt? That must be the joke of the decade.

Re:who pays?

[Crashmarik]

The US should remove all military from Europe and announce that they are no longer protecting any Europe bound or originating shipping lanes.

It would be great if US would do it. Europe could finally grow up and stop being an US lapdog :)

Vladimir is that you ?

Re:who pays?

[I4ko]

No need to wonder. Most WISPs are already switching to LTE from 802.11 WiFi

Re: who pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

UK? Sorry, no more EU goodies for you.

Re: who pays?

[bestweasel]

Half? In the UK it's a third for someone in the middle.

Re:who pays?

[Bugler412]

No rose colored glasses, and I'm a US citizen who has travelled to EU countries frequently. No place is perfect, I just know from personal direct observation travelling in EU and closely associated countries like Switzerland that in exchange for the higher taxes that roads, public transit, education, health care and other government services are in an entirely different (better) realm of quality than what we get here in the US. You get what you pay for.

Civilized

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Seems like a good idea. Shame that the US is going to fall further behind on this front.

Re:Civilized

[gfxguy]

90% of the U.S. will likely have > 1000Mbps by 2025, so most of us will be 10x ahead.

Re: Civilized

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quite astonishing that spastics haven't worked out that every fucking cunt knows free means free at the point of use, no cunt in the whole of fucking Europe is labouring under any other understanding

Re:Civilized

[TheRaven64]

the government has no reason or motivation to control the overhead

What on earth gave you that idea? Governments have been cutting funding for all manner of things over the past decade. Oh, and government income comes from taxation, which is related to the state of the economy and improving broadband access has so far led to increases in tax revenue everywhere that it's been measured.

Re:Civilized

[dgatwood]

90% of the U.S. will likely have > 1000Mbps by 2025, so most of us will be 10x ahead.

And 10% will still be barely faster than dialup, so by 2025, 10% of us—probably the poorest people who can least afford to pay for the infrastructure improvements to bring their speeds up to snuff—will be 1000x behind.

Re:Civilized

[Anonymous Coward]

The USA currently lags behind the EU in connection speeds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds
The EU is planning to increase speeds. Do you really think the US will suddenly be 10x ahead of the EU? Through the limitless power of wishful thinking perhaps?
USA won't beat the EU until the last-mile monopoly is broken.

Way under-budgeted

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I appreciate the sentiment, but 120 million euro is way, waaaaay too little for a project of that scale.

Personally, I have the option of a 500Mbit line, but I have friends who live just a few kilometers away, who are stuck with ~10Mbit DSL or less. Based on my experience in the ISP/telco world, you can multiply that amount of money by ten, and maybe that'll be enough. For one country.

Great

[NotInHere]

UK will get a firewall instead, while on the mainland you have free wifi. Nice trade isn't it?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Well, There's This

[twmcneil]

While the specific plans may not be actually feasible and the budget may bloat to 20 times its original estimate, there is this:

has redefined Internet access as a so-called universal service, while removing obligations for old universal services such as payphones

Something those of us in the US would do well to emulate.

Sucks to be Britain

[gachunt]

Keep Calm and Carrier on

Re: town, village, and city?

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you haven't been to Northern Europe? The Nordic countries have decent consumer rights legislation so mobile operators must provide the same service everywhere, if they wish to have a license for areas with (by their metrics) "high" population density. You can really get 4G in the middle of nowhere there with no monthly cap and dirt cheap.

Taxes don't fund billionaires in EU

[Anonymous Coward]

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.