Spain Plans To Make Broadband A Legal Right

The Spanish government has announced plans to give every citizen a legal right to 1Mbps broadband at a fixed price – and will follow it up with measures against file-sharers.

Spanish citizens will have the legal right to broadband at 1Mbps, in 2011, the Spanish minister of industry Miguel Sebastian announced at the FICOD 2009 digital content event in Madrid.

Sebastian also promised measures to protect copyright – but refused to discuss “piracy”, promising a specifically Spanish model for managing digital content, which would provide a “platform for legal content that will meet the needs and demands of key players”, according to eWEEK Europe Spain.

Spain is the first major European country to add broadband to the universal service obligation due from telecom providers – although Finland announced its citizens will have the legal right to 1Mbps last month – but commentators have said that 1Mbps is not a very ambitious target.

“Tthe new law will simply formalise something that the operators will soon deliver voluntarily, said IHS Global Insight telecoms analyst Aapo Markkanen, “at the same time defining the speed of access as something that will hardly qualify as broadband on the day when it will come into force.”

Although Spain has plenty of rural areas which will be hard to cover, Spain can do this with wireless, having announced the liberalisation of the 900MHz band for data services, said Markkanen. Already radio is used to provide the legal right to dial-up Internet which Spain has, he said.

The Spanish regulator CMT will give the contract to provide the service, so Spanish citizens can demand broadband as well as telephony. So far, universal services have been provided by incumbent telecom provider Telefonica, with other operators contributing according to their market share.

The universal service provision might be in conflict with any move to cut off the connection of illegal file-sharers, such as the one which the UK government has promised, but Markkanen doubts this will be an issue.

“That has not been tested in court yet,” he said, “and as there are not many countries where Internet access is universal, it is a little debatable.” Even universal services such as a phone line, which are a legal right, are not the same as a universal human right, and there are situations where they can be restricted, he said: “Phone usage can be restricted if you deal in drugs, and is also restricted prison. Some legal rights can be restricted.”