Issues relating to Internet services were discussed in the Riigikogu
The Riigikogu heard replies to interpellations concerning the Internet services offered to people in Estonia, Via Baltica, and road construction and four-lane roads.
Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs Liisa-Ly Pakosta replied to the interpellation concerning the Internet services offered to people in Estonia (No 646), submitted by Members of the Riigikogu Vadim Belobrovtsev, Aleksei Jevgrafov, Vladimir Arhipov, Lauri Laats, Andrei Korobeinik and Aleksandr Tšaplõgin.
The interpellators asked why a difference had emerged between Estonia and other European countries in terms of the cost and speed of internet services and how that situation affected the reputation of Estonia, especially in the ICT sector.
The interpellators wanted to know whether the people of Estonia had any hope that the state would not let the situation continue where they had to pay significantly larger amounts for ultra-low speed internet as compared to their neighbouring countries.
Pakosta explained the reasons for the situation where a difference had emerged between Estonia and other European countries in terms of the cost and speeds of internet services. She noted that population was sparse in Estonia. “The people of Mustamäe and Lasnamäe are essentially paying for the internet of the people of Kadrina.” There is a large investment volume in providing this service. Since Estonia is much more sparsely populated, but we do not have good internet speed available only in urban centres, but all over the country, this actually affects the result to a great deal. In addition, the result is also affected by the electricity to maintain the network and the price of electricity in Estonia is not the lowest in the world.
According to Pakosta, the differences in the availability of internet connection in urban and rural areas are much smaller in Estonia than in neighbouring countries. “And if we look at this whole price level of communication services, we are more or less among the average in the European Union. Covering the needs of the vast majority of consumers today, i.e. a speed of 100 megabits per second, can be obtained for a price of less than EUR 30 per month,” Pakosta said.
According to Pakosta, the best solution would be if new communications undertakings entered the market and there were more active competition in the market. In fact, today, 52% of all the addresses we have can choose between the cable networks of several service providers. “The country will certainly continue the work it has been doing for the last five years to build operator-neutral networks in market failure areas. The largest of these is operated by Enefit today,” she said.
It would certainly help the market progress if our population increased and wealth grew rapidly, and people could participate more competitively in purchasing services, especially in rural areas. She believes that a higher population density in the countryside would also help.
Pakosta explained that the country was moving forward with the “last mile connections” project, which should ensure the construction of access networks in areas of market failure. “The goal is to provide an Internet connection with a speed of one Gigabit per second, and this is currently among the priority projects where investment money has indeed not been cut for next year. The order of magnitude was somewhere around EUR 30 million,” Pakosta said.
Minister of Infrastructure Vladimir Svet replied to the interpellations concerning Via Baltica (No. 234) and road construction and four-lane roads (No. 408).
During the open microphone, Rain Epler, Kalle Grünthal and Martin Helme took the floor.
The sitting ended at 5.42 p.m.
Verbatim record of the sitting (in Estonian)
Video recording will be available to watch later on the Riigikogu YouTube channel.
Riigikogu Press Service
Gunnar Paal
+372 631 6351, +372 5190 2837
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