Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Finland makes 1Mb broadband access a legal right (2009)

news.cnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 73 posts

Re: Finland makes 1Mb broadband access a legal right (2009)

#61

Post by oleganza »

AlisdairO wrote: post #41
glaze wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Finn, I don't like the idea that other people can vote to take away some individual's rights, in this case, ISP's.

Since when is a corporation an individual? Society defines the rights that corporations have. It's in its very nature to be able to take away rights. I don't particularly have any opinion on the article in question, but I don't view property rights as always being important over all else.

Owners of a corporation define the way their assets are allocated and used. Just like you define how you use the contents of your wallet and bank account. There's nothing ethically special in the business operation from your allocation of personal labor, capital and time.

Apart from that, there is no such thing as "society entity". Society is only a group of acting individuals.

Re: Finland makes 1Mb broadband access a legal right (2009)

#62

Post by zzuser »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #31
zzuser wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The above is an invalid comparison. A better, more objective measure is linear population density. Miles of roads in Texas: 152,054 miles Miles of roads in Finland: 65,617 miles ( ) Population of Texas: 25,674,681 Population of Finland: 5,375,276 Linear population density of Texas: ~169 persons per miles of road Linear population density of Finland: ~82 persons per miles of road Ergo, it is cheaper per head to provid…

This really isn't a good measure since roads will be denser in urban areas and less dense in rural areas, thus leading to exactly the same issues as directly using population density. But beside that, the public road mileage for Texas is off by a factor of two. This DOT document lists 303,176 miles of public road in Texas. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohim/hs04/htm/hm10.htm

> This really isn't a good measure since roads will be denser in urban areas and less dense in rural areas, thus leading to exactly the same issues as directly using population density.

Please be so good as explaining you point better, I do not understand it. If you are going to wire up every lot in the state, you will have to traverse all roads in the state to do a cable drop to every lot in order to do so. What does road density have to do with it?

When building wireline communication networks, the deciding factor costwise, is the number of linear cable sheet miles. As such miles of road is a good proxy for comparing deployment costs between locations.

Please note that I am discussing wireline broadband. If you have you heart set on wireless coverage, then we have to talk different measures, and even there population density is not the tell all metric.

> But beside that, the public road mileage for Texas is off by a factor of two. This DOT document lists 303,176 miles of public road in Texas. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohim/hs04/htm/hm10.htm

My bad. However that does not still make it cheaper to build in Finland, it merely brings up Texas and Finland to par on miles of road per population. Several things still favour Texas in the cost per capita, such as: economics of scale, ability to perform construction year around and no need to put utilities under the frostline.

There are no technical or cost reasons for Texas to be unable to offer the same level of broadband service as Finland. It all comes down to other reasons, perhaps such as lack of political will in Texas.

Re: Finland makes 1Mb broadband access a legal right (2009)

#63

Post by dlitz »

glaze wrote: post #33
AlisdairO wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the Finns have a different idea of what makes a good society than you?

As a Finn, I don't like the idea that other people can vote to take away some individual's rights, in this case, ISP's.

So then, can you give an example of a regulation that you don't think is morally wrong?

Re: Finland makes 1Mb broadband access a legal right (2009)

#64

Post by AlisdairO »

oleganza wrote: post #57
hahainternet wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're clearly arguing with a libertarian. There's no point continuing.

Why there's no point continuing?

My experience of arguing with libertarians is that they are often desperate to view a complex world in an impractically black and white manner. I wouldn't say there's no point arguing, but I can certainly understand why people would find it frustrating.

Re: Finland makes 1Mb broadband access a legal right (2009)

#65

Post by kiiski »

paulhauggis wrote: post #15
Natsu wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is becoming more and more necessary over time. Addressing it as a common need and making sure that everyone can accesses it is not inherently unreasonable. Questions of "rights" devolve into discussions of fairness with each person asserting that their sense of justice is the one that society ought to satisfy. It makes more sense to examine an issue like this from a perspective of utility: the internet is incredib…

"Addressing it as a common need and making sure that everyone can accesses it is not inherently unreasonable." There are public libraries in nearly every city with free Internet access.

Which will still be there for those who need them. And remember that Finland is geographically quite large country with a lot of small towns and villages[1]. Not everyone is close to a library. Not to mention that the weather in winter will definitely discourage people, especially the elder, from walking to one.

[1]: Here's a list of the 20 largest municipalities: http://www.stat.fi/tup/suoluk/suoluk_vaesto.html#suurimmat. The smallest of those has population of 48 907. About half of Finland's population is spread around municipalities smaller than that.

Re: Finland makes 1Mb broadband access a legal right (2009)

#66

Post by AlisdairO »

oleganza wrote: post #59
AlisdairO wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could use the same argument to prevent any corporate regulation - including such noncontroversial ones as anti-monopoly regulation.

First, anti-monopoly regulation is not noncontroversial. Second, why do you think corporations are something other than a mode of cooperation of real people? When you are a customer - you cooperate with other people by exchange of money for the service. When you are a capitalist, you cooperate with others by paying them for the services upfront before the product is sold. When you are employee, you cooperate by renti…

Anti-monopoly regulation is pretty noncontroversial. Libertarianism is, despite its popularity in places like HN, quite a fringe movement.

Do you think that the consequences of two entities cooperation is limited to those two entities?

Further, and I'm sure you'll vehemently disagree with me, I don't think people or corporations are islands. I don't resent owing society some cooperation, and I have no problem with corporations being in the same boat - more so, in fact, because as concentrators of power such regulation becomes more necessary.

Re: Finland makes 1Mb broadband access a legal right (2009)

#67

Post by pbhjpbhj »

GlennS wrote: post #5
elithrar wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I understand that having access to the Internet is an important thing for numerous reasons, but why the arbitrary speeds? What benefits does a 100MB connection offer over a 1MB connection? It's a marketing/political thing. Most users think that a fatter pipe == faster connection, when of course we know that's not the case. Heck, most of the time when you hit higher port speeds it's a case of the content server on t…

I've had 50Mb/s for a few years now (UK). It doesn't protect your from network screw-ups, packet-loss or high latency, but it can still be really nice to have. It opens up the possibility of 'What shall we watch tonight? Oh we don't have that yet? I'll just grab it now. Should be done in ten minutes.' Most digital distribution services seem able to handle uploading that fast these days. So the main uses are downloadi…

>Not life-changing, probably not worth calling a human right at this point, but pretty convenient. //

The _availability_ of some level of access though does appear to be worth making universal (within the UK). Access to government services is increasingly being focussed through the WWW. This can have the effect of leaving behind those without a reasonable level of internet access available; making services for that sector of society more difficult to reach (a Trademark search say, or a check of the statute databases or ordering a book from the library or checking up on the MP or ...).

If such a disparity of available services can be readily avoided then it seems that it should be.

Re: Finland makes 1Mb broadband access a legal right (2009)

#68

Post by Gormo »

a_bonobo wrote: post #11
crazy1van wrote: post #8

Calling access to a consumer good a "right" really cheapens the concept. The right to free speech doesn't promise every citizen a printing press.

Have you read the article? >the Finnish government said that no household "would be farther than 2 kilometers from a connection capable of delivering broadband Internet with a capacity of at least 100 megabits of data a second." That doesn't say anything on who's going to pay, probably the people. What do you mean by "cheapens the concept"? I don't understand this formulation. What concept? From my point of view, wat…

Access to food and water are can be recognized as rights in the same way we recognize the right to free speech as a right, i.e. that you may not be prevented from pursuing the object of that right by law or policy.

The right to food means that you may not be artificially constrained from growing and producing food for yourself by your own means. It doesn't mean that anyone's obligated to give you free food; the UN's concept of rights, as implied by the linked Wikipedia article, is simply wrong. How can you have a right that can only be invoked by the action of third parties?

Having a right and possessing the object of that right are two entirely different things.

Re: Finland makes 1Mb broadband access a legal right (2009)

#69

Post by Gormo »

Natsu wrote: post #13
crazy1van wrote: post #8

Calling access to a consumer good a "right" really cheapens the concept. The right to free speech doesn't promise every citizen a printing press.

It is becoming more and more necessary over time. Addressing it as a common need and making sure that everyone can accesses it is not inherently unreasonable. Questions of "rights" devolve into discussions of fairness with each person asserting that their sense of justice is the one that society ought to satisfy. It makes more sense to examine an issue like this from a perspective of utility: the internet is incredib…

> It is becoming more and more necessary over time. Addressing it as a common need and making sure that everyone can accesses it is not inherently unreasonable.

It's entirely worthwhile to pursue goals like maximizing the availability of internet access for as many people is feasible and practicable. But putting this pursuit on the same level as fundamental rights - which inhere in every individual irrespective of any external infrastructure or institutions - does indeed dilute the concept of rights.

Re: Finland makes 1Mb broadband access a legal right (2009)

#70

Post by waterlesscloud »

zzuser wrote: post #62
waterlesscloud wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really isn't a good measure since roads will be denser in urban areas and less dense in rural areas, thus leading to exactly the same issues as directly using population density. But beside that, the public road mileage for Texas is off by a factor of two. This DOT document lists 303,176 miles of public road in Texas. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohim/hs04/htm/hm10.htm

> This really isn't a good measure since roads will be denser in urban areas and less dense in rural areas, thus leading to exactly the same issues as directly using population density. Please be so good as explaining you point better, I do not understand it. If you are going to wire up every lot in the state, you will have to traverse all roads in the state to do a cable drop to every lot in order to do so. What doe…

A number of different factors at play.

Imagine a layout where cables do not have to follow roads.

Imagine a layout where one cable can serve buildings on two roads. Certainly much, much easier when the buildings are dense.

Imagine a thousand people living in one building in the center of a thousand square miles, served by one cable. Imagine a thousand people living one per square mile in a thousand square miles. The population densities are the same. The cabling costs are not.

Post reply on HN