Access to the Internet is a Human Right in Estonia

Chaos-Engine

Link to /. Article
I posted this here because I want to discuse the politic implications of this decision they made over 2 years ago on the Irish economy and politica...

Firstly: Estonia has a low-corporate tax system and is following examples such as Ireland. At present it has corporate Tax at 24%(twice ireland's rate) but there is no tax on profits reinvested.
Estonia also has plans to reduce their corporate tax rate further and have a fixed exchange rate with euro.

Secondly: A large amount of tech firms successfully draw labour from finland to estonia to work

Thirdly: The government has recently made access to the Internet a Fundemental Human right in Estonia ans is in the process of wiring and wirelessing up the whole country(town and country). I'm not talking about dial-ups. 2mb wireless WANs is what they are doing in rural areas and huge ADSL in urban areas of a 2mb+ varity...


Mainly this is going to put serious pressures on Irelands assumed role as eHub of europe. In particular when the tech industry begins to reimerge in the next 2 years...

I don't think the government here could pass such a bold law unless they were to own the wires that it sold along with eircom.
I think that the government has learned its lesson there and in its proposed break-up of the ESB it will have a state-run agency that owns all the transmittion lines and networks that make up the Power grid of the country.

chewy

i like the idea access to the internet being a human right...

they must talk to china about that
how did that come about ...?

when is that human right broken?

must find links about that issue

Sparks

Funny that I read this topic when this month's Asimov's editorial is on the impact the Internet has had on society in general.
From a researcher's point of view, it's an immensly important tool - right up there with the printing press to be honest.
From the personal point of view, the same seems true - I get curious about a random topic and I have the equivalent of an enormous library available to me; I can send email round the world to friends, co-workers, family or random strangers in seconds; I can buy goods that I wouldn't even have heard of before - for example, I can buy a hand-made wooden pen made half-way round the world as a gift with a minimal amount of fuss, and a hand-made, hand-bound journal made in nepal to go with it. I can debate issues with people on this site without leaving my living room, I can get news and video from all over the world, I can read journal entries from people in the areas being affected by those news stories...

Basicly, it's a very good thing and Tim Berners-lee deserves the equivalent of a Nobel prize.

Should it be a human right? Hmmm. I dunno - it's rather a strange idea. But then at one point the idea that people other than white male landowners should be able to vote on political matters was considered to be downright idiotic, so I can't dismiss it out of hand...


As to how this will affect Ireland though, I think that the Irish Government is going to be a far, far more serious threat to us than the Estonian Government - so I think it's a bit of a red herring.