France Plans 20-Billion Euro National Broadband Plan 178
judgecorp writes "France is planning a €20 billion programme to get super-fast broadband to its rural population. About half the funds will come from government investment, and President Hollande believes the work will create 10,000 jobs. Half the population should have fast broadband in the next five years, and the whole country in ten years. France is at a disadvantage for broadband as it is a large country with a lot of rural areas. However, it also has a more left-leaning government willing to take on infrastructure projects."
Nah, not really (Score:2, Interesting)
Australia is a large country with a lot of nothing. There are like 4 city centres where most people live, a bit of rural population, and then a whole bunch of empty nothing. Not surprising, given the climate and geography really.
The US is probably one of the most rural nations over all. Lots of big cities too, of course, but a substantial amount of population that is spread out over a substantial amount of land.
Re:[NOT]Cool! (Score:2, Interesting)
Is this person serious?
If so then wow, you americans really are brainwashed..
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Interesting)
There is nothing wrong with the government providing a lot of employment and spending a lot. Plenty of successful countries that have avoided the global recession do.
In fact this is exactly what they need now: growth. A recession is caused by a reduction in spending due to lack of confidence. Companies don't get orders, don't sell things, so they in turn don't buy stuff from other companies and so on. The government can counter that by creating big contracts.
That is how you get out of a recession. The government spends its way out, and then when times are good again cuts back and reduced the deficit it built up. Over the channel in the UK our government is doing the opposite, cutting back on everything and delaying the recovery as much as possible. They want to drive down wages, cut employment rights and get rid of aspects of the government that could be turned into profit generating businesses. It is exactly what happened during Japan's lost decade, only ours is already projected to last at least 11 years.
France has the right idea. Government debt is not like household or credit card debt, you can't solve it by cutting spending before the economy is fixed.
Re:France is a large country? (Score:3, Interesting)
Rather imitate the Aussie's than the U.S. The isp's there got tens of billions for the exact same thing and simply pocketed the cash and did nothing.
Re:France is a large country? (Score:4, Interesting)
Bah! We've got cattle stations [wikipedia.org] larger than some countries.
And yet, despite our ridiculously massive land mass and relatively tiny population, owing to fucked-up government policies we also boast some of the most expensive house prices in the world [guardian.co.uk].