Wireless World: ‘Finland, Finland, Finland. Finland has it all.’

This fall, Michael Vassar, the President of the Singularity Institute and guru on all-things-future surprised me when I asked him when the United States would be completely wireless.

He said he was certain that countries would start to be completley wireless within ten years, but that the United States will be 5 to 10 years behind most of East Asia and Northern Europe.

Why? The U.S. is too tangled in a mess of intellectual property disputes over internet revenue streams. He blames our lack of public interest in politics.

And it seems, he’s right. Last Wednesday, Finland’s Ministry of Transport and Communications announced that by July 2010, over 5 million citizens will have the right to a one-megabit broadband connection, and 100Mb by 2015. Finland is the world’s first country to create laws guaranteeing wireless access.

Considering that in 1998, Finland, the home of Nokia, was the first European country where more than 50% of the population had access to cellphones.

For more on the growing wireless world in Europe, check out: European Civil Society Internet Rights Project

We can only hope that as other European countries follow suit, the United States starts to follow suit.

United States Citi Wi-Fi Projects

From: The 10 Most Connected Cities in The World- Daily Wireless

St. Cloud, Fla.
St. Cloud’s network spans 24 square miles and is available to all users in the city free of cost. After 6 months, 77 percent of the cities inhabitants had registered for the service.

Mountain View, Calif.
As part of their effort to “reach out to [their] hometown” Google is currently offering free wireless Internet to the city of Mountain View.

Tempe, Ariz.
As one of the pioneering municipal WiFi cities in America, Tempe boasts an impressive 40 square mile WiFi network. Despite its grand implementation, access to the WiFi network requires a subscription and as such has seen slow integration with the cities residents. Currently only 15 percent of Tempe’s residents own a municipal WiFi subscription.

Corpus Christi, Texas
Corpus Christi employs a unique 147 square mile WiFi network designed primarily for use by public works and public safety departments. The city is now saving a great deal of money in utility costs by reading meters digitally, police officers are able to do their jobs better by having instant access to various criminal mug shot databases and of course city employees are better able to telecommute to work from all across the city.