Local to global comments in three languages. Much also from Pitäjänmäki Sockenbacka in Helsinki Helsingfors Finland, as well as from the organisations I participate in. The older content is from my previous blog page which I have now closed. Most of the contents on the earlier pages deals with sustainability, human rights and social responsibility in the global supply chains.
The prolonged heat wave is slowly drying up the Mätäjoki creek that runs through our Marttila village in Pitäjänmäki Helsinki. This used to be an ancient route up from the sea which monks from the Baltics used already in the middle ages. The uplift of land that started after the Ice Age and still slowly continues has of course had its own effect.
If the name of the creek is translated directly into English it would be the Rotten River. For long I thought it was indeed so that the rather unflattering name with its not so nice connotations had its reasons.
Only this year I heard from a city expert that this is in fact a misunderstanding. The Swedish name Rutiån from which the Finnish one has been adapted is actually not based on ’rotten’ – that is ’rutten’ – but comes from an ancient and forgotten German word for a dog…
So we learn something every day.
The hot weather continues here with daily temperatures up to 30C. Luckily we have been spared from the kind of huge forest fires that ravage Sweden but the risk is always there.
In this (still) bilingual Finland also most names exist in the two national languages. This means that Helsinki is Helsingfors, the city region Pitäjänmäki is Sockenbacka and the Marttila village is Martas in Swedish.
The traditional berries market at our local Helsinki community garden / allotment in Tali, Pitäjänmäki, today. Hot weather, many people and good mood as the heavy rains decided to take a break.
A small village built by war veterans and their families in the 1940s brought home the European Broadband Award 2017. The prize was awarded by three European Commissioners jointly, at a European Union conference and ceremony on 20-21 November. The ”Helsinki Optical Fibre Cooperative” had entered into one of five competition categories, ”Openness and competition”. This was the first time that a Finnish communications network scored the top position.
The broadband network reaches out to most of the almost two hundred family houses in the Marttila Village.
The First Prize at Brussels airport on its way home to the Marttila village in Pitäjänmäki, Helsinki, Finland.
The EU aim is that ”by 2020, all Union citizens have access to much higher internet speeds of above 30 Mbps and 50 % or more Union households subscribe to internet connections above 100 Mbps.” In Marttila we have already come much further.
The large majority of the 100 plus mainly single family houses in Marttila are connected through a fast and high capacity optical fiber network. It offers symmetric speeds between 100 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s. Even higher speeds are possible, and have been tested.
To choose optical fiber instead of relying on wireless connections through one or another of the big telecom operators was clear for us from the beginning. As the mobile phone networks get increasingly congested, which is already happening here in Helsinki at times, connections slow down and become much less reliable.
The connection that I use now is through Telia and gives me speeds clearly above the 100 Mbit/s. The upload speeds that always tend to be much lower are identical to downloads which is a major benefit. Optical fiber is the only sustainable solution that carries far into the foreseeable future.
Much of the work was done by the Marttila village residents themselves.
We also wanted to own and control our own communications. Therefore our cooperative brings four fibers to each home instead of the single one that operator-owned and managed nets do. Multiple telecom operators, large and small, compete and sell their internet services directly to our members using our network.
One of the reasons that we started to build ourselves was the lack of interest by both public and private operators. Government focus is on rural areas and they clearly want urban regions to be built up by commercial actors. The commercial telecom operators are not interested in neighbourhoods like ours which from their point of view are too sparsely populated .
Our village network is the first of its kind in an urban area. It has already inspired followers and other cooperatives have been formed in different parts of the country. We have proved that not only big multinational businesses can build and own communications networks, but also grass-root users themselves.
Of course we were lucky to have some really skilled villagers who were committed to managing and implementing the project with us others. There was a great amount of unpaid voluntary work that made this network accessible for residents. It has contributed much also to the togetherness across the many generations who live in this green oasis in the middle of a large metropolitan area – well it is much more snow-white in the winter…
Jan Furstenborg, member of the Helsinki Optical Fibre Cooperative Board.
En
frontmannaby i Sockenbacka i Helsingfors har fått EU:s stora Bredbandspris 2017,
i en av fem tävlingskategorier. Priset tilldelades för ett snabbt fibernät som
förenar över hundra egnahemshus i området, och som är öppet för priskonkurrens mellan
teleoperatörer.
Vid en
ceremoni på en Europeisk datakonferens i Bryssel i början av veckan (20-21.11.)
överräckte tre EU-komissionsmedlemmar tillsammans priset till data-aktivisterna
från Helsingfors.
Det lilla
Sockenbacka-kooperativet väckte positiv uppmärksamhet för både sin
initiativrikedom och det goda projektresultatet. Med fyra fibrer till varje
hushåll och mycket snabba dataförbindelser är nätet redan nu långt över de mål
som EU har ställt upp för de kommande åren.
De flesta övriga
deltagarna i tävlingen var ministerier eller privata storföretag. Projekten var
ofta EU-finansierade och datatjänsterna begränsade till en teleoperatör. Det
finländska kooperativet är däremot helt finansierat av invånarna själva.
Kostnaderna har hållits nere genom ett omfattande frivilligarbete både inom
projektledning och nätverksbygge.
Det
prestigefyllda bredbandspriset – European Broadband Awards – tilldelas
vartannat år till de fem bästa projekten i medlemsländerna. De två andra
finalisterna i sockenbackabornas kategori var Ungerns utvecklingsministerium
och en stor irländsk teleoperatör, båda med internationellt finansierade
jätteprojekt.
fff
Marttilan kylä
Helsingin Pitäjänmäellä on voittanut Euroopan Unionin suuren Laajakaistapalkinnon
2017. Ensimmäisenä suomalaisena tietoliikennehankkeena kyläläisten itse
rakentama nopea kuituverkko voitti yhden viidestä viidestä kilpailusarjasta.
Brysselissä
alkuviikolla (20-21.11.) pidetyssä suuressa laajakaistakonferenssissa
luovuttivat kolme Euroopan Komission jäsentä yhdessä ensimmäisen palkinnon pitäjänmäkeläisille aktivisteille.
Pieni
helsinkiläinen osuuskunta herätti omatoimisuudellaan ja projektinsa
toteutuksella erityistä huomiota kilvassa jossa muut osanottajat olivat yleensä
joko ministeriöitä tai monikansallisia toimijoita. Monet näistä
Rintamamieskylään
rakennettu nopea valokuituverkko kattaa toistasataa kotia ja on myös tekniseltä
suorituskyvyltään ylivoimainen verrattaessa jopa EU:n asettamiin lähivuosien
kehitystavoittaisiin.
Arvostettu
laajakaistapalkinto – European Broadband Awards – kilpailutetaan joka toinen
vuosi EU:n jäsenmaissa toteutettujen projektien kesken. Osuuskunta Helsingin
Valokuidut oli ilmoittautunut kilpailukategoriaan jossa edellytettiin avoimen
kilpailun edistämistä palveluntarjoajien kesken.
Loppusuoralla Marttilan
kylän tietoverkon kanssa finalisteina kilpailivat unkarilainen ministeriö ja
suuri irlantilainen tietoliikkenneyritys.
The resident-owner cooperative fibre network in the Marttila village in Helsinki has been built by residents themselves at their own expense without any public support from Finland or the European Union.Laying the cable on a rainy autumn day in Marttila, in its protective tube. Four fibres reach every participating home and the network is resident owned. This means that there will always be competition between service providers instead of a local monopoly which is the usual situation.
When I write this, the European Parliament is discussing EU support to internet connectivity in rural areas. This is good and important.
The aim is that ”by 2020, all Union citizens have access to much higher internet speeds of above 30 Mbps and 50 % or more Union households subscribe to internet connections above 100 Mbps.”
In Marttila – my small village in Finnish Capital Helsinki – we have already reached this, and indeed even more. This has been done entirely at our own expense, without any outside support. Much of the work has been contributed by villagers on a voluntary non-paid basis.
The cooperative owned Marttila network is not large by any measure, and the homes in the village are pretty modest. They were built on city owned land in the late 1940s, by and for war veterans.
The large majority of the 100 plus mainly single family houses in Marttila are now connected through a fast and high capacity optical fiber network. It offers symmetric speeds between 100 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s. Even higher speeds are possible, and have been tested. I doubt that many would have opted for the few lower speed alternatives that are available…
To choose optical fiber instead of relying on wireless connections through one or another of the big telecom operators was clear for us from the beginning. As the mobile phone networks get increasingly congested, which is already happening here in Helsinki at times, connections slow down and become much less reliable.
The connection that I use now is through Telia and gives me speeds clearly above the 100 Mbit/s. The upload speeds that always tend to be much lower are identical to the downloads which is a major benefit. Imagine the improvement for a friend of mine here who is a graphical artist and who now can be sure that hid works rapidly fly off to their destination without having to slowly grind for ages. So, optical fiber is the only sustainable solution that carries far into the foreseeable future.
We also wanted to own and control our own communications. This is now reality as our cooperative brings four fibers to each home instead of the single one that operator-owned and managed nets do. Multiple telecom operators, large and small, sell their internet services directly to our members over our network that connects to theirs.
One of the reasons that we started to build ourselves was the lack of interest from others to do anything here. The European Union or the Finnish government focus on rural areas and want urban regions to be built up by commercial actors. The telecom operators on their side are uninterested as neighbourhoods like this are sparsely populated from their point of view.
The village network is interesting also as it is the first of its kind in an urban area. Today it proves that not only big multinational businesses can build these networks but also grass-root users themselves.
Ok, of course we were lucky to have some really skilled neighbours who were committed to the project and who have done a great unpaid voluntary work for us all. Great contribution also to the togetherness across the many generations who live in this green oasis – ok it is much more snow-white in the winter…
