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The Mozilla Corporation is known for among other things the Firefox web browser and the Thunderbird e-mail client, and its current CEO has written an open letter to the European Commission on the upcoming Digital Services Act (DSA) (warning for PDF). In it she vaguely addresses transparency, accountability, online advertising, and digital markets for a European internet, without addressing The Internet itself. The DSA appears to include proposals to split off a European internet from The Internet at large and model it after the great firewall of China in regards to control and isolation.
In the document, New Developments in Digital Services: Short-(2021), medium-(2025) and long-term (2030) perspectives and the implications for theDigital Services Act, the great firewall of China gets praised repeatedly as something to emulate should the EU split of an internet from The Internet:
To make sure these predictions become reality and to prevent the misuse of digital tools, we advise the European Parliament to take a le ading stance in the global digitalisation. Three main recommendations are given in the study: A European cloud / European internet could secure a reliable, trustworthy digital ecosystem in Europe. Funding programmes for eGovernment would use the innovative capabilities of start-ups throughout Europe to create the most digital and advanced government in the world. And all this should be communicated in a visionary and exciting way, making sure the right regulations are in place, but also encouraging boldness and showing a willingness to change (see Figure 2).
[...] Action Plan 1: European Cloud / European Internet
A European firewall/cloud/ internet would foster a digital ecosystem in Europe based on data and innovation. It would drive competition and set standards, similar to what has happened in China in the past 20 years. The foundations of such a European cloud are democratic values, transparency, competition and data protection.
[...] Technologically, it would require a top-level infrastructure, high-speed 5G or a 6G data network and a firewall. Setting up such a network would promote many European companies and therefore boost business and drive innovation.
Like the Chinese firewall, this European internet would block off services that condone or support unlawful conduct from third party countries.
[...] As e-commerce and remote working solutions became widely used and even smartphone tracking to prevent infections met very little scepticism. Now in the aftermath of this pandemic it's the perfect time to act and to push for ambitious goal in digitalising Europe.
[...] Update 2 of the Visionary Communication Programme: i.e. crypto, quantum computing. Here it is important to include visionaries, think tanks and influences to communicate the update to the public.
Phase 2 of the eGovernment Venture Programme: Testing and evaluating first technologies and ideas developed in the programme.
Initialising the European internet: setting up think tanks to creating the cornerstones and possible pitfalls of such a project.
Long term 2025 – 2030
Update 3 of the Visionary Communication Programme: i.e. 6G, European internet, DNA products. Further communication within the Europe of the new digital goals.
The EFF has also responded to the EU Commission on the Digital Services Act, with a request in the opposite direction, that of putting the citizens back in control and avoiding a situation where there are gatekeepers consisting of only a handful of large corporations.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Wednesday September 09 2020, @07:46AM (4 children)
Not places like Sweden, Norway, and Finland. All of those do well with broadband, despite having population densities [worldpopulationreview.com] of 25/km² (191st), 15/km² (210th), and 18/km² (200th) respectively, compared to the US which has 36/km² (175th).
Now if you're looking at Romania, which has a density of 84/km² (124th), then you have different prospects. You can have broadband installed any day of the week from a selection of different companies and be up and running within 24 hours, for a low price, even if it involves cabling. Or at least that was the situation earlier. That's a big contrast to the US where there are regional monopolies and major dead zones where you can't get Internet connectivity for any price and even community broadband has been made illegal.
That's on top of several hundreds of billions of dollars spent [vice.com] completely without result [irregulators.org]. Throwing more money [techdirt.com] at the thieves instead of prosecuting them won't produce any broadband. The US has a political barrier to broadband, not a technical one nor even a problem due to population density. It appears to be that political graft is solely the hinderance. With the short range of the frequencies designated for 5G, those dead zones are going to be even larger.
So while it is certainly not a matter of population density, I agree that there is certainly no justification for the total lack of progress we have witnessed in the US the last three or so decades.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 09 2020, @08:09AM (1 child)
You won't have Internet there "just about everywhere you can go" - just "everywhere on can reasonable can think to be going".
Certainly, in the residential areas you will find it, but not in every wilderness.
I imagine there (or in UK - 275/sqkm - for the matter), one could expect at least mobile coverage in almost all places (except caves, deep valleys in nature reserves or whatnot).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday September 09 2020, @08:22AM
There are a lot of online maps showing coverage, but the maps all go by carrier rather than showing a holistic summary. Yet, they do show coverage where there are towns and villages, not just cities.
One additional point is that roaming covers whole countries. So, as an example, if you are anywhere in Norway, calling anywhere else in Norway, using a Norwegian account, then the call will be a local call. Same for Sweden and Finland. Some European providers are even starting to extend roaming coverage for adjacent countries. Progress has been slow, but at least it is actual progress.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2020, @02:14PM (1 child)
> ...compared to the US which has 36/km² (175th).
US is a lot bigger than your other example countries and has some very empty places where people would still like to have good internet. See https://worldpopulationreview.com/states [worldpopulationreview.com]
At one end of the list are Montana 7/km², Wyoming 6/km² and (not part of contiguous states), Alaska 1/km².
In some cases, the US states can be compared to the Euro countries, in terms of land area.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday September 09 2020, @03:00PM
Yes, and the US has spent over $400 billion USD on broadband so far, with nothing to show for it. The population, via the politicians, could hold the corporations which received that money responsible but hasn't. In contrast, what would the European countries' Internet situation look like if there had been an additional $400 billion USD ( ~ 337 billion € ) invested in it? It's not the lack of money. It's the lack of will combined with the grifting holding things back there.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.