Bush smiled and nodded, then nodded some more, as Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip enthusiastically explained how his government holds paperless Cabinet meetings.
The system, which uses digital signatures, permits legislation to be OK’d with the click of a mouse.
Ansip’s explanation, though, was not as lickety split. He described in detail how the dozen members of the Cabinet, in a room dubbed the “Starship Enterprise”, can vote or make comments online. Cabinet meetings that used last about four to five hours now wrap up in about 30 minutes.
Bush endured the lengthy explanation, shifting his weight back and forth.
He seemed charmed by Estonia’s use of the Internet in making daily life easier for its citizens.
“They’ve got an e-government system that should be the envy of a lot of nations,” Bush said.
Bush received two gifts from his Estonian hosts: a glass sculpture and a Skype wireless phone that can be used to make calls over the Internet.
The country is often nicknamed “E-Stonia” for its booming high-tech industry, and it is the main hub of Skype, the Internet telephone company that eBay bought last year for $2.6 billion.|link|
For reference:
The United States is 15th in the world in broadband penetration, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). When the ITU measured a broader “digital opportunity” index (considering price and other factors) we were 21st — right after Estonia. |link|
what does the term broadband penetration mean? Is it trying to determine how many households have broadband is it a per capita use of the internet? I bet some areas of the states are fairly tech heavy while others are not but is this a bad thing? OR is is absoltely a bad thing like low literacy rates?
Yeah, its per capita broadband use. The main justification people use in these comparisons is that the United States covers a very big land mass, and it would be an incredible engineering project to bring our network up to date across the whole of the country.
Even still, our biggest cities still have rather pathetic internet access. Even in Riverside, which is no small town, and very close to the internet backbone, we had trouble getting decent broadband. The best you’ll find outside of laying a dedicated like is something like 10 Mbps, and even that is rare. On the other hand many countries in Europe and Asia have 100 Mbps widely available.
Now, internet access in general is more widespread, with more widely available dial-up connections and of course access points like the public library. But really, our problem is at the level of infrastructure, and we are falling far behind. There is no excuse for the pathetic state of the internet in this country, and most of the problem comes from corporations who are unwilling to invest in better infrastructure, and government deregulation that allows telecom companies to hold a monopoly on the resource so there is no competition providing incentive to improve.
Ideally, the internet should be treated as a public utility, like electricity or water. Considering the commercial and economic possibilities of the internet, it would be in the best interest of everyone to invest heavily in this resource. But old, monolithic companies are slow to understand the new technology, and slower still to adopt it and transform their business models.
In any case, I strongly recommend reading the second article in the post above, “America’s Internet Disconnect”, which is written by one of the member of the FCC pleading for a more progressive approach to internet policy.
I don’t mean to derail your important discussion of important issues (none of which I actually read, except something about penetration and broads), but the first thing I thought of when I read that title was that you’d managed to synthesize an electronic form of THC.
That or you’re just really high and thinking about computers thinking about being really high.
You know, the usual.