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Janne from ButtUgly blog has stated that surfing and talking to his loved one over a transatlantic flight is priceless, and thus 30 euros US dollars for 10 hours of Wifi is nothing. I dropped off my dad earlier this week to Parikkala, where he caught the train to Helsinki. He booked 1st class, so he could work on his stuff there, as he thought there were electric plugs offered – after all the 1st class is advertised for business men primarily.

First of all, there were no electric plugs in 1st class and the online reservation system did not allow us to book a seat with a place to plug your computer in, even if there were any. Secondly, how expensive would it be for VR (the railway company) to integrate WiFi on to the wagons? Do you think people would rather take the train to Helsinki, even if it took 5 hours if you can work on your normal day to day stuff during that trip, or pay triple and fly to Helsinki for one hour (plus all the trips to the airports and to the city)?

I’d argue that VR would have a real competitive way to steal passengers from airplanes to their trains by simply adding WiFi and marketing it a bit. But then again, there’s no competition for them (direct, anyways) so why should they improve service that much – being a monopoly is pretty good.

ps. I’m off to a friends wedding today – I’ll try and moblog some stuff from there, but don’t expect too much – I am after all in charge of the punch :)

Jyri Engestr??m enforces Susanna Mukkila’s ideas on State funded municipal WiFi in Helsinki in Helsingin Sanomat newspaper. He basically states the same ideas in his post that I have also argued for;

Susanna Mukkila (HS 8.8.) suggests that the construction municipal Wi-Fi networks should be funded with tax money. In light of history, the suggestion is wise.

Finland gained a lead in wireless because the state-owned operator Tele built the first mobile networks here. Meanwhile, the mobile communications industry got off to a wobbly start in the U.S. as the public sector lacked the will and the instruments to invest in network infrastructure.

Finns could concentrate on innovating texting culture, while in the market-driven U.S. it made no sense to keep the mobile phone on, as the network coverage was spotty and the receiving party paid.

Now there is a disruption going on in the telecommunications industry. People are calling and messaging each other for free on the internet. This is destructive to the teleoperators, but for innovations that spur economic growth, it’s not such a bad thing.

As the cost of access drops, the spending on content actually increases. One would think the money flowed into Hollywood, but it doesn’t.

Few people are willing to pay for ready-made content online. Instead, millions are subscribing to services created by new growth companies, that make it possible to self-publish photos, music playlists, and keep a blog for instance.

Many believe that the rapid spreading of Wi-Fi is a factor that helps to explain the growing popularity of these services. The industry agrees that wireless broadband will be an even more important driver of growth in the future.

History tends to repeat itself. New services spring up where consumers have terminals; and there is an incentive to buy terminals where an affordable, reliable network is in operation.

This has been noted not only by Finnish cities who offer a Wi-Fi network, such as Oulu and Lahti, but also by some Americans – wisened by their mistake?

For instance, Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, promised in his speech: “We won’t stop until every San Franciscan has access to a free wireless internet service.”

Helsinki has know-how. It can offer a wireless network through its energy company, like many other Nordic cities have done, if it so chooses.

It can also collaborate with commercial operators, manage the network infrastructure, and let the operators handle the services.

If Helsinki doesn’t acknowledge its strengths, its position as the pioneer of wireless culture and economy becomes questionable to say the least.

There’s a lot of good discussion going on at the moment in the Finnish blogosphere about Wireless Internet and its uses. Schizo-Janne wrote about his dislike for the fact that Finland is not doing enough to stay in the lead of technological innovation. Janne takes this further in his blog and continues on the idea of innovation and the freedom WiFi creates for innovativeness.

I have to say I agree with both gentlemen 100%. Finland is not doing enough for creating the internet infrastructure in our country. What people don’t usually understand is that availability of Internet is becoming an essential part of our information society, just like street lights, sidewalks and paved roads. As society develops, the standard of living increases and more and more things are taken for granted.

However, availability of Wireless Internet should not only be taken for granted, but also seen as a great platform for innovation – just like Janne put it. Once you have availability of internet in most parts of the country – you can begin to see small companies emerging and taking advantage of this platform.

For example, once GSM became a dominant platform for mobile phones and the customer base grew large enough, tens of companies offering content for mobile phones emerged. The reason behind these is that their business plans saw the GSM network an open network in a sense that they did not have to talk to other parties (not to that extent the application providers have to at least) for setting up their business.

Janne talks about the difficulty of creating applications for mobile phones and new businesses in his post. I have to agree with this as I’ve seen it first hand, when Futurice was launching their Kuvat Kavereille (a photo sharing) service – they had to talk to numerous parties in order for the business model to work. This could be fundamentally different in an WiFi space where internet access can be seen as a part of the everyday infrastructure of a modern society.

This indeed creates a very big freedom to innovate that the Finnish government has not yet seen the advantage of. Are there any other people who would like to see a WiFi.ee kind of network being built into Finland? I would seriously like to help if there were other enthusiasts like me.