Estonia’s Free Wi-Fi

Both sad and impressive, all at the same time, we see this small country once again take North America to school in making broadband available. And best of all, no government sponsorships were involved for the bulk of it. Yes, this is private enterprise at its finest. What’s the difference from there to here on the broadband front? Simple: a complete lack of INTERFERENCE from our government regulating it to death.

Regulating the quality of my food is one thing, but clearly regulating who can open up shop to create a massive Wi-Fi network at the state level here in the US is not working. Those companies that do offer spotty service are free to do so without competition and lock people into ridiculous contracts. So how is that regulation working out for ya?

To be ultimately fair, Estonia is a small country. And it would be best to compare it with a state or province, rather than the US or Canada as a whole. Still, to me it shows just what can happen when governments leave the growth of broadband alone and allow companies to compete without being overruled at the local level by various state governments. I mean really, Estonia is going to be rocking along with 100 MBPS by 2015? Care to guess what we will be rocking with? Try metered cable Internet. Yeah, now that is “fast.”

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