The country of Finland recently declared they were making broadband a legal right, requiring that all 5.3 million of the country's residents be served by 1 Mbps service by next summer, and 100 Mbps service by 2015. That's a little easier to do in a country like Finland, which has just 5.3 million residents to our 300+ million, and doesn't have to deal with things like, well, Montana. Spain too this week has decided to make 1 Mbps broadband for all a legal right by 2011, expanding their universal service fund to help fund deployment into coverage gaps, according to Reuters:1 Mbps may not be much, but even such base proclamations are more than the United States government has been capable of. That's expected to change in 90 days, when the FCC finally unveils their national broadband plan to Congress, who'll then have to vote to actually act on it. Like Spain, our plan will likely include using the Universal Service Fund (USF) to fund broadband, but given that program's history of dysfunction, that would be easier said than done. The FCC only recently decided that it might be a good idea to track how USF funds are actually used, if that gives you a good idea of the program's nature.

Smaller countries certainly have it a bit easier. In Finland, the estimated $287 million their broadband project will cost is dwarfed by both AT&T's ($7 billion) and Verizon's ($24 billion) next-gen upgrade plans here in the States. Even those sizable investments only reach a third or more of those carriers' total subscribers, and extending even 1 Mbps service to all U.S. consumers could be a multi-billion dollar endeavor. One that's plagued on all sides by a U.S. political system that has traditionally failed to foster competition through regulatory action, and frequently struggles to shake off the lobbying influence of the nation's largest carriers.