Estonia has been 100% connected for a year. Next, 100MBps !

It’s been over a year since Estonia announced every inch of the nation was connected via WiFi.

While muni wifi languishes in larger American cities, and US rural coverage is spotty at best, former Soviet state Estonia now has Wifi service reaching any location within its boundaries. Quite a feat from a country that was in total financial and technological melt down a couple of decades ago. This has been accomplished the without support of, or more importantly, without interference from the government.

Often called E-stonia by geeks, every one of its 1.4 million residents, half of which live in the suburban and rural areas, are connected by wireless Internet. More than two-thirds of the population conduct their personal banking transactions and file their taxes online. And school children access the school’s servers and connect to national libraries from home — or anywhere for that matter. In Estonia it is even possible to travel between cities by trains and busses and maintain Wi-Fi Internet access.

Above all, much of this access comes virtually free. Users do not pay any access charges directly in most locations. And interestingly, this wireless deployment through the whole country has been achieved with almost no government support. Barring a few schools and libraries that have been set up by the Estonian government, the 1100-plus Wi-Fi hotspots that span the country, covering every nook and corner, have been set up by local small businesses, such as hotels, cafes, groceries and gas stations, along with the four national telecom companies. And the whole effort has been and still is driven largely by just one man: Veljo Haamer, a technology geek who conceived this dream of wiring - or rather unwiring — his country about 6 years ago. (Government Technology)

What’s next? 100 MBPS for all by 2015. It’s good to have decisive leadership that hasn’t sold out to a duopoly.

Tallinn - Estonia unveiled ambitious plans Friday to get high-speed internet access to every one of the Baltic state’s 1.3 million residents by 2015. An agreement reached by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and an industry group - the Association of Estonian Information Technology

and Telecommunications Companies - promises to turn the entire country into a super-high speed internet hotspot by means of a project called EstWin.

“If the 19th century was the era of railways, and the 20th century saw the development of electricity grids, the 21st century is the era of development of communications networks,” said Economy Minister Juhan Parts. Getting the whole country online would have major economic benefits, Parts said. EstWin will make available an internet connection

of at least 100 megabits per second across the country by means of nearly 7,000 kilometres of fibre-optic cabling and 1,400 wireless hotspots. (Earth Times)

Do you love to shop? Well here is your chance to go on a shopping spree FREE!

http://aff.primaryads.com/t.asp?id=18898&e=6247

You can secret shop stores in your area and keep the things you buy!!

What an AWESOME deal! Click now to learn more.

http://aff.primaryads.com/t.asp?id=18898&e=6247

This offer is sponsored exclusively by RetailReportCard.com and is subject to terms and conditions. See website for complete details. Participation eligibility is restricted to US residents 18 and over. This email was sent by an affiliate of RetailReportCard.com. AdDrive.com is the exclusive affiliate network for RetailReportCard.com offers. RetailReportCard.com authorizes affiliates to promote this offer to permission based email lists subject to our affiliate terms which include (but are not limited to) providing a working unsubscribe mechanism, not using any third party trademarks such as the manufacturer names of our free gift products in from lines or email aliases, and a subject line which accurately describes the content of the promotional message. If you believe this email violates these terms, please notify us at abuse@producttestpanel.com. DO NOT use this email for unsubscribe requests. If you wish to unsubscribe from this email list, please use the simple unsubscribe instructions provided by the list owner. If you would like to place your email address on RetailReportCard.com’s do not contact list, please visit http://jdaf.com/crc_supp/start.html and input your email address, or write to us at Consumer Research Corporation 3830 Forest Drive, Suite 207, Columbia, SC 29204. The submission of false, misleading or inaccurate information shall void this offer. Offer not valid to residents of Ohio, and is void where prohibited by law.