Finland has unlimited (without the quotation marks) data on prepaid SIMs from all carriers. Usually for about 1€ per day or 20€ per month. Depending on the plan it will also include unlimited texts and talk.
That sounds miserable. Give me a good cold winter with snow rather than a miserable non-winter that is damp, wet and slushy. Dry cold is far better than than damp thaw weather.
Why always the focus on free Wifi? Germany, like most of Europe, has good 3G/4G coverage. Rates are reasonable, so you can provide your own connectivity. Far more cheaper than renting a space just to get free Wifi.
That doesn't mean that the German laws about liability for offering connectivity don't suck.
> That's something which is easy to change if there was a will
You don't really believe that, now do you?
Clearing the usage of new frequency bands is a huge regulatory undertaking involving multiple countries. It takes years and massive effort even when there is a very strong will and a clear need.
> Again that is easy to say but it is meaningless unless there are quantifiable metrics by which you can prove that.
Consumer prices.
Geographical coverage.
Unlimited and unrestricted usage.
> If you look at the actual coverage map Finland isn't considerably better than most countries including the US, 4G+ is available in a few hotspots only, and the LTE and 3G coverage is pretty similar.
How did you perform this comparison? I find this claim very unlikely to be correct.
> The 4G+ 300mbit plans from Elisa cost 60 Euros a month without a device, I haven't seen anything so far that is that unusual
This is incorrect.
DNA 300M plan is 30€ per month. Elisa and Sonera are 50€ Per month. All plans without a contract, quotas or limits.
300M are premium flagship plans with a premium price. 100M plan are like 15€.
Starter plans with 50 minutes of talk time and 0,25 Mbps of uncapped, unlimited and unrestricted usage are free on Sonera's network.
> EDIT: You can count Ukko out completely they do not provide voice at all not to mention that paying 85 Euros on a 12 month contract for 3-10 Mbit/s without a device is laughable
Tell that to somebody who would have to rely on satellite if it were not for Ukko. And it's not like you can't run your choice of VoIP over that.
> Don't know about Ukko or what they cover, can't even figure out if they are an MVNO or not their wikipedia entry says that they operate LTE 31 which makes them sound like a rural/remote region operator since that's what most of these low bands are used for.
Ukko is an MNO, not an MVNO. They hold a national license for the 450 MHz band which they use to provide data services in all of Finland.
> If they indeed operate on the LTE 31 band this also means they are a speciality carrier which also means they have to provide you with their own devices since I'm not aware of any mass market consumer device which supports B31
Correct.
> The cellular spectrum especially in regards to 4G LTE channels is pretty damn large, and most countries started with more than 3-4 cellular providers they just had decades of consolidation since then.
> Clearly there are some other forces driving cellular communication in Finland other than only having 3 carriers.
The difference is that Finland has effective competition, whereas other countries have nominal competition.
A good and effective regulative authority has definitely helped, but the fact that Finnish operators actually both invest and compete makes for all the difference.
Regulation in Finland defines what broadband speeds are acceptable. This includes mobile broadband. Acceptable speeds are a minimum of 50% of top speeds using a 4 hour average or a minimum of 40% of top speeds at any time.
> Sonara is Telia, didn't knew about DNA I know that some of the islands and the more remote areas have had setup coop telephone/internet companies but overall there isn't much "competition" as far as number of companies go.
There are five mobile operators in Finland: Elisa, Sonera, DNA, Ålcom and Ukko Mobile.
There are lots and lots of wireline operators.
> If you exclude MVNO's most countries have pretty similar number of mobile and broadband providers.
There are similar numbers of mobile operators in most countries because there is only so much spectrum to go around. However there is a great deal of difference in the amount of wireline broadband providers per country.
Core networks do not use QoS or congestion control in the traditional sense, as they are designed to be run without congestion in normal circumstances and because QoS is too expensive compared to adding more capacity.
For example:
Fremdschämen To be embarrassed by something somebody else did German
Myötähäpeä in Finnish (alongshame when literally translated)