Netizen: Finland

World map depicting Asia Esperanto: Mondmapo bildiganta Azion Español: Ubicación de Asia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If the data centers are pervasive enough and powerful enough, your phone can be light as light. The two extreme ends feed on each other. Larry Ellison is right. There is no cloud. What we refer to as cloud is really these data centers. I am surprised Google lags so far behind in Asia. And I am guessing it lags even further behind in Africa and Latin America. Come on, Google, you can do better than this.

New Google Asia servers expected to bring 30% speed boost when they go live later this year

the new servers could provide up to a 30 percent improvement in the speed of Google services in Asia .... Google already operates seven data centers in the US and facilities in Finland, Belgium and Ireland, but the lack of an Asia center has likely inhibited the company’s potential for growth in the region

Thursday, November 01, 2012

Finland In The Lead

Finland: Plan for universal 100Mbps service by 2015 on track

Back in 2009, Finland announced what might be the world’s most ambitious national broadband plan: a guaranteed minimum service level of 1Mbps for all homes and companies by 2010. That goal is then planned to be kicked up to 100Mbps, served via a fixed connection or wireless, by 2015 ...... by providing subsidies mainly to local cooperatives that have sprung up to serve rural communities. To date, 86 percent of the 5.35 million Finnish population lives within two kilometers of a 100Mbps connection, and the expectation is that this will grow to 95 percent by 2015. ...... European Union’s Digital Agenda for Europe. ..... requires member states to publish national broadband plans by the end of the year to bring a minimum level of 30Mbps service to all citizens by 2020. It also requires countries to bring speeds of 100Mbps to half of the EU’s households by 2020. (As one commenter pointed out, most of Denmark already has 32Mbps wireless coverage.) In other words, Finland is far surpassing what Brussels has mandated. ...... Karvia—like many small towns around the world—faces a challenge of keeping its younger population local. With more reliable Internet, it lets more creative and freelance workers stay in town. ...... “They can do remote work at home and so they have moved back to Karvia,” she said. “People like artists and people who are designing buildings can work at home and I think that this was very important for us to do. Also, they can study at home because the network has made a possibility to study.” ...... there may be a downside to better access ... “In the first year we had nine children born. Normally we have 20 children [per year]—maybe [couples] are watching TV too much” ...... It can cost up to €53,000 ($68,000) per household in the most rural and remote regions. ..... today, fiber optic broadband is at the level of a basic public service (like electricity, water, or roads). ..... “The Finnish strategy as it is does not seem to provide this but leaves it to market forces on one hand and to regional and local authorities on the other,” he told Ars. “The first actors have no obligation to fulfill their part, and the second actors are lacking realistic financial and political means.”