Economical analysis of finnish national broadband action plan: broadband to everyone

Governments and local authorities all over the world have introduced a large number of initiatives to foster the development of broadband technologies. Finland is not an exception to this rule. According to Finnish broadband action plan, in 2015 nearly all Finns shall have an access to very high-speed service with a minimum download rate of 100 Mbps. The Ministry of Transport and Communications estimated that the commercial operators will achieve coverage of about 95% of Finns primarily in build-up areas. But to reach the aim of 99% of the networked households, public funding will be needed. The implementation of the action plan has already been started but there has been only limited discussion on the economical impacts of the publicly funded projects. The bottom-up method used in this paper revealed that economical gains do not justify the project but the motivation must be found from social aims like equal opportunities. The results of the study are also questioning the limited share of the national government in funding of the broadband projects on sparsely populated areas. The current funding model leaves too large responsibilities to other stakeholders of the project and this can jeopardize the implementation of the whole national broadband policy.