Free Wi-fi Over Greece: A provison or a threat ?

In his recent interview Greece's PM made a commitment for free Internet access over the country. In social media, this commitment met the derision of the public opinion within the context of the broader Greece's economic problems. But there are more interesting approaches.

A narrow approach would be that as the project is funded by European funds there will be no burden on the budget. So, why not take the money ? One could say that this way we're losing the big picture. From a free-market perspective, as the state becomes the sole internet provider, the private companies will lose average users as clients, stop improving structures and ultimately stop providing the service.

However, any public provision would not cover the entire country. The plan is to create wifi hotspots in targeted central places. Besides, the network's speed will be attenuated due to the fact that multiple users will be online at the same time. Never mind that a large number of websites will be blocked and a bandwidth limit could be imposed. The market will therefore not be affected even if the project eventually covers the whole country continuing to offer faster speeds and fewer restrictions at reasonable prices.