ssegaert - ProductWiki

ssegaert responded to the thread True or False: The United States Broadband Penetration is the Highest in the World?

ssegaert — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 18:20:37 -0400

July 16, 2007 at 6:20 pm

edited a post
Well, al sarcasm or patriotism aside (I'm not even Estonian myself), I wish people who wrote for influential magazines would put in a bit more effort than to look at a list and think "Jeez, Estonia, that must be a bad place, can't believe the US is even worse off than even that country (I don't know anything about but culturally uneducated imagine it is a terrible ignorant place)!". A little bit of research in even the Newsweek DB itself would have revealed a lot more. Even Dubbya was here once. And yes, e-governance was the focal point of that visit, next to the fact that the Estonians have troops in Iraq. Surely Newsweek must have picked up on that one. It would have been like writing: "Jeez, even Georgian wine (the country, not the state) is better than Californian!". Imagine, such a backwards country like Georgia producing wine. Hey, wait, I think that is where wine started to be made some 5000 years ago. Catch my drift? You don't know anything about a place, you look up some first-glance information and decide that the comparison with all-might US must be terrible. Think again. And in case you wonder: the country in the Dilbert comics is Elbonia. No relation. Sorry to rant, but if I can do my share for a balanced reporting...

ssegaert — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:00:20 -0400

July 16, 2007 at 4:00 pm

Thank you for not taking the title Newsweek took: "...than EVEN Estonia's". In my view, the person who wrote the article in Newsweek is pretty ignorant for a tech reporter. Estonia is at the forefront of many e-governance related developments. Broadband penetration is only a small part of that. More importantly, there have been important government and private sector initiatives to provide access and to make people use the access that is provided.Why does Estonia rank relatively low then? Simple. Because Internet is a community asset. Available to everyone like electricity and running water, in this case via Public Internet Access Points, Country-wide Wimax coverage and an encompassing network of wifi hotspots. When you live in a country where you can open your laptop and connect, you don't really need a "subscription per person". That said: the market in Estonia concerning broadband could be better. Speeds are not nearly as good as in other countries. I wish I could make my money writing articles with flashy titles from my desk and not checking any facts nor background, like the Newsweek guy seems to do... So, thank you for pointing out the real issue on this blog, without adding the denigrating "even" ;)

ssegaert — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:52:16 -0400

July 16, 2007 at 3:52 pm