Internet in Finland

FUNET was created in 1984 to link Finnish universities. The .fi top-level domain was registered 1986. FICIX was created in 1993 to interconnect Finnish IP networks and commercial sales of Internet connection began.[1]

Since July 2010, Finland has become the first country in the world to make Internet access a legal right.[2][3]

Broadband

Broadband Internet access in Finland was launched commercially in 2000 in the form of ADSL. As of 2008, typical ADSL connections in Finland are 1024/512 kbit/s or 2048/512 kbit/s. Faster speeds, such as 8/1 Mbit/s, 24/1 Mbit/s and faster are also widely available.

In October 2009, Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications committed to ensuring that every person in Finland can access the Internet at a minimum speed of one megabit per second starting July 2010.[3]

In the city of Oulu, Oulun Puhelin Plc (OPOY) has for a longer time offered full-rate ADSL (8/1 Mbit/s) and VDSL (10/10 Mbit/s, actually Cisco Long Reach Ethernet).

With aggressive marketing, Saunalahti brought full-rate ADSL (8/1 Mbit/s) to the capital area and Turku on 2004-08-03. Saunalahti announced ADSL2 services (12 Mbit/s) on 2004-10-21, available in the capital area and Turku. Saunalahti also announced the first ever ADSL2+ services (24 Mbit/s) in Nordic countries on 2004-11-15, first available only in the Tampere region.

Sonera provides 10/10 Mbit Cisco Long Reach Ethernet in select apartment buildings for prices ranging from €39 to €50. Sonera has also started installing fiber optic connections in major areas of Finland, providing a speed up to 100/10 Mbit, albeit also exclusive to apartment buildings.

By 2013 commercial fiber optics based connections have become commonplace in major city areas usually distributed in house by VDSL2, speeds of 100/10 Mbit/s usually costing under €50 and often available by multiple competing ISPs offered in different packaging. More and more rural towns also have fiber available to residents by government supported and resident self organized projects.

Internet service providers

Some of the largest Finnish Internet service providers include:

Censorship

Some ISPs are using a voluntary child pornography censorship list administered by the police. The list has been criticised because it has contained legal adult content, that little has been done to actually shut down the illegal websites and, as the list is secret, it can be used for any censorship. More recently, a government-sponsored report has considered establishing similar filtering in order to curb online gambling.[5]

Also, there are legally binding court orders to block The Pirate Bay issued to all major ISPs.[6][7]

References

  1. ↑ "History of Internet in Finland". ISOC Finland. 9 August 2004. Retrieved 11 January 2011.
  2. ↑ "Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'". BBC. 1 July 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  3. 1 2 Beaumont, Claudine (15 October 2009). "Finland makes fast broadband a legal right". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2 May 2010.
  4. ↑ "Etusivu Welho Verkkokauppa". Retrieved 24 June 2010.
  5. ↑ "Censorship is the answer". blog.anta.net. 18 January 2008. ISSN 1797-1993. Retrieved 18 January 2008.
  6. ↑ "Elisa hävisi Pirate Bay -kiistan - KKO ei antanut valituslupaa" (in Finnish).
  7. ↑ "DNA:n ja TeliaSoneran The Pirate Bay -esto pysyy" (in Finnish).
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