Broadband access - We’re a long way off pace

WHEN Sweden announced that it hoped to become an oil-free society by 2015, the ambitious declaration was greeted with considerable scepticism yet the project is progressing well.

Finland, in the same enriching, embrace-the-future vein, has made access to broadband connections to the internet a legal right for every one of its citizens.

This is the first legislation of its kind anywhere in the world.

All Finns will have the right to a 1 megabit per second (Mbps) broadband connection, which telecommunications companies will be obliged to provide to them. The government in Finland has also promised that by 2015, the entire population will have a 100Mbps connection.

Our situation is so very different, so very far off the pace, that it hardly needs comment of any kind.