Finland plans to make broadband access a legal right for its 5.5 million people. As of July 2010, every person in the country will have the right to 1 megabyte broadband; five years later, the Finland intends to make that 100mb.
This goes well beyond the measly speeds promised by Britain's broadband report, which initially promised universal service but was swiftly scaled back when the costs of extending the rights to broadband to Britain's remoter communities became clear. Finland, though less than a tenth the size of Britain in population terms, has remote areas too: Indeed, it has one of the lowest population densities in Europe. Even if much of this is concentrated in the south of the country, though, that still leaves tens of thousands of far-flung communities which the Finnish government have committed themselves to delivering broadband services to within the next months.
Finland has something of a head start in that around 79 percent of the population already use the internet. Britain is somewhat behind, with around 66 percent using an internet connection. That's about 18th in the world. However, a study claimed that around ten million Britons had never used the internet, and 1.6 million children who have been cut off from "digital Britain." Four million of those are classed as "socially excluded."
Bringing those millions online is the task of Martha Lane Fox, who heads the government's DIgital Inclusion Task Force. Lane Fox wants to get three million of the most disadvantaged people online over the next three years, arguing that the average family can make savings of £650 a year just by shopping and paying bills online. People with internet connections tend to earn more, as well as save more. There are savings for government, too: The internet can connect jobseekers with employers in ways Britain's job centres can only dream of, and using the internet to contact government services is cheaper and, we would assume, more appealing than hanging on the telephone all day.
The Guardian interviewed Lane Fox for this morning's edition. The reporter is somewhat sceptical of her role - he says that greater internet penetration has not solved the socioeconomic problems of Antigua, the Faroe Islands and Iceland, to name three states with greater numbers of internet connections than Britain (per cap). Also, some of the ten million in the UK who haven't used the internet might not want to - particularly the over-65s.
She dismisses this, arguing that there are barriers which deter older people from approaching the internet:
Possibly the problems in getting people online is not to do with their attitude to computers, but computers' attitude to them. Lane Fox recalls going to see a group of pensioners who were being given computer training. "The biggest obstacle, the thing they couldn't get their heads around, was that you had to click on the 'Start' button to turn the computer off. It just didn't make sense to them."
Seems that coming up with software and hardware people might actually want to use is one of the main hurdles facing Lane Fox and her team.
But where are the businesses likely to provide this going to come from?
Britain, and Europe in general, suffers from a "chronic shortage of finance for young innovative companies", says lobby group BusinessEurope. This could leave us falling behind global competitors.
BusinessEurope wants to see tax incentives for entrepreneurs, as well as an expansion of financial products on offer from the European Investment Bank, and the establishment of an integrated venture capital market within the EU.
These would seem obvious. The group points out that R&D investment in Europe trails the US and Japan and quotes approvingly a French business option which grants special tax status to smaller and medium sized business which pour funds into research and development.
It is important that European governments consider this. Europe's position as a leader in start-ups and technology is far from unassailable; governments have figured that education is one of our selling points too, and are in the business of encouraging universities to set up in the far east. We should look to ways of sustaining one of the few skill sets we have left.
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