Right to High speed Internet

Access to broadband Internet is now a legal right in Finland and it is the first country in this world to have done this.

It means that the Finland telecome companies need to provide the 5 million(approx) finnish citizens with atleast a 1 Mbps Broadband Internet,starting in July 2010. However the Finnish government’s plan is to provide Finnish with 100Mbps broadband speed by 2015.

Earlier in June, France’s high court declared such access a human right. But Finland went a step further by legally mandating speed. According to Wikipedia, approximately 79 percent of the Finnish population use the Internet. Finland had around 1.52 million broadband Internet connections by the end of June 2007 or around 287 per 1,000 inhabitants.

Australias BIG investment on broadband Internet

The Australian Government has planned to build its $30.7 billion national high-speed fiber-optic broadband network.This project has been announced recently by the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd .

Australia has slower and more expensive Internet services than many developed countries, raising concerns about competitiveness and this big venture is seen as a good news by analysts . The new Internetwork is expected to be 100 times faster than the current network.

Mr. Rudd calls it a  “ a historic nation-building investment focused on Australia’s long-term national interest ” . Though this project would take 7-8 years to complete , around 90 percent of homes would be connected to a network with speeds of up to 100 megabits per second. The network would add 37 billion Australian dollars to the national economy through added productivity, analysts said.