Finland makes broadband access a legal right

Fri Jul 2 15:23:21 UTC 2010

Around 1991 I offered (dial-up) internet to the school district
offices in Boston for $1/month/office, 10 districts, $10/month,
$120/year, shareable accounts. The person from the board of ed I was
talking to said free would be a problem as it might be seen as some
sort of graft etc. and might be complicated to "clean up".

I figured it might let them play around with it and "inject" it into
the culture and we could go from there. The person I was speaking to
knew what the internet was etc. and was appreciative of the offer. It
seemed like a start.

A couple of weeks later she calls me and says the response from her
powers that be was: If we have $120/year to waste on internet
connections ``we'' can think of other uses for that $120!!!" so thanks
but no thanks.

The Boston education budget is about $800M today, so maybe it was
$500M back then? Whatever, hundreds of millions. But they fight over
the crumbs!

    -b