— Posted by Timo Hallantie & Kristiina Pietikäinen, Members of the Going Local team for Finland

Our Going Local team went to Finland in October 20-21 to share views and debate on very specific DEA topics like eID, eInvoicing and interoperable eServices. It was a welcomed chance to refresh our contacts with ex-colleagues and current acquaintances in Finland. And for some of us this was the first time visit to the land of the first GSM phone call and several Nokias.

In cooperation with the Ministry of Transport and Communications we had organised a Digital Agenda event at the prestigious Finlandia Hall. The topic chosen for the day was the interoperability of infrastructures needed of eServices. At the heart of this is obviously e-Identity and we heard several excellent presentations on pilots in this area and ideas how to move forward. It was clear though that not everyone agreed on all the details, e.g. should the eID or e-authentication be provided based on a central regulated approach or based on user-centric or service oriented. The practical evidence points that the latter is happening – check your wallet and count how many smart cards with eID you have! In any case what matters is to get an ecosystem running, no eID service can thrive, if there is no wide service and user base.

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— Posted by Kristiina Pietikainen, Policy Officer DG INFSO, Member of the Going Local II team for Finland

Toimivat sisämarkkinat, yhteentoimivat infrat ja rajat ylittävät sähköiset palvelut kuten sähköinen tunnistaminen ovat EU:n tietoyhteiskuntaohjelman, digitaalisen agendan, keskeisiä tavoitteita. Niistä  keskustellaan Helsingissä 20.10 järjestettävässä seminaarissa “In search for interoperable EU-wide infrastructures for e-services”

Seminaariin odotetaan noin sataa osanottajaa, asiantuntijoita ja päättäjiä. Tavoitteena on tunnistaa yhteentoimivuuden esteitä ja miten ne ylitettäisiin. Mitä yhteentoimivuus tarkoittaa, mitä se edellyttää ja miksi avoimuus on niin tärkeää? Seminaarissa puidaan erityisesti sähköistä tunnistamista ja verkkolaskutusta ja otetaan tarkasteluun myös uudet ratkaisut kuten mobiilivarmenteet ja NFC. Sähköinen tunnistaminen on erityisen ajankohtainen aihe, sillä komissio valmistelee juuri asiaa koskevaa uutta lainsäädäntöä. Verkkolaskutuksen osalta Suomi on ollut edelläkävijä, mutta mitä Suomi voisi antaa muulle Euroopalle, jotta alueelle voitaisiin luoda todellinen rajat ylittävä maksuliikenneinfrastruktuuri.

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— Posted by Kristiina Pietikainen, Policy Officer DG INFSO

Almost  a hundred people –members of the parliament, industry, regions, municipalities and cooperatives lead by Minister of Communications, Krista Kiuru, – gathered together on 11^th October in Helsinki to review the ambitious Finnish BB-strategy.

The half a day seminar focused on lessons learned and experienced gathered so far from the ongoing  Broadband projects. The points raised were accurate and constructive and deserve serious consideration not only when updating the Finnish strategy but also in the framework of  the European BB policy. There is a strong spirit pushing the broadband forward in Finland. But no doubt there are also problems.

Neither in Finland nor elsewhere has the enthusiasm of the operators to participate to the rural Broadband projects been very great. Therefore minister Kiuru in her opening speech emphasised strongly the responsibility of the operators to actively contribute to the rural broadband deployment. She stated that the current attitude of the operators is simply not acceptable and pointed out that the state has already actively supported the operator’s businesses; for instance, by allocating them valuable spectrum. So it is now time to give some favours back. Read the full entry

Number of views: 802