Free Wi-FI - a boost for development. Really?

The Prime Minister’s declarations for free wi-fi connection come under the mantle of “growth”, but we shouldn’t buy. Once free wi-fi is provided, the companies which failed to win the tender will be swept from the market or grow significantly weaker as the demand for their paid services will be minimal.The lack of competition entails decreased investments and thus no technological progress is expected. The winning company will be disincentivised to make large-scale investments as a)there are no strong competitors to run behind b)there’s an increased uncertainty regarding the continuation of their activity(cronyism,corruption,other extra-market factors) which fuels predatory behavior.Furthemore,internet provider’s contraparte will be the government, establishing a state’s monopsony,which goes down to suboptimal outcomes for internet users: enterprises in the free market spend large amounts of money so as to individualize the preferences of the various costumer types.But when the state will stand for millions of internet users,unavoidably the “average costumer’s needs” rationale kicks in and the more demanding users among us won’t be able to find a product that best suits their needs.For the aforementioned reasons,contrary to what mr.Samaras holds,such a provision would impede “growth”,distort the market and lower the quality standards of provided services. 

Mariela Tiliakou  

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.

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Posts not exceeding 200 words. Legal issues and controversies from a liberal perspective. Written by students (mainly law students) in English, the Law Students for Liberty - Athens study group. See you round!