Following the example of Finland, the Spanish government says that beginning 2011, everyone in Spain will have the right to buy broadband at speeds of at least 1 megabyte per second. The government recognizes that, like telephone service, broadband is now an essential part of daily life.

Any telecom operator that has a universal service contract has to provide reasonably priced broadband everywhere in Spain. At present, universal service obligations imposed on these operators include only fixed line telephony and directory service. The government is adding Internet access to the list of obligations.

I am quite shocked to read this because large parts of Spain are mountainous and sparsely populated — the Pyrenees, Basque country, the northwest around Santiago de Compostela, the Parque Nacional de Sierra Nevada in the south, also very mountainous, difficult terrain. I expect that the operators will have to deploy wireless broadband in those areas to meet the government’s mandate.

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