This is good news for folks north of the English border
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/15813The European Commission has authorised £3.4 million (about 6,705,260, €4.320,000) of public funding for broadband in remote and rural areas of Scotland.
It’s the, “final step to bring affordable broadband services to all Scottish citizens,” it says in a statement,
“The Commission concluded that the aid is well-targeted to achieve this objective and contains adequate safeguards to ensure that Scottish citizens will enjoy the benefits of a competitive broadband market.
In 2004, the Commission approved a UK state aid measure that increased broadband coverage to 99% of Scottish households and he objective onow is to extend the coverage to the remaining 1% of households in Scotland that still don’t have affordable broadband services.
It says the project is, “fully in line with the Commission’s policy to promote widespread and affordable broadband services to all European citizens and complies with the EU state aid rules that allow aid to facilitate the development of certain economic activities or areas where such aid does not unduly affect trading conditions between Member States.
I had not actually thought about this problem before reading this article, coming from an area where we can pick and choose our supplier its easy to become blind to the reality that we are taking something for granted that others are still dreaming of
Lets hope the service is of reaonable quality and enjoins many new "netizens" to the whacky world of the web
