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German chancellor DECLARES WAR on crap rural Wi-Fi

Merkel's visionary 10-point plan is anything but

CeBIT 2015 German Chancellor Angela Merkel used the opening of CeBIT to present her 10-point plan to revive Germany’s digital economy.

However despite some rhetoric about “Industry 4.0”, the 10 points are instead a rather uninspired collection of the same old ideas that every man and his goat trots out.

“The competition is large, the competition is global,” "Mutti" Merkel informed the CeBIT faithful, before saying that partnership with China is the way forward.

“The German economy estimates China not only as the major trading partner outside Europe, but also as a partner in the development of sophisticated technologies. This was one of the reasons we agreed [at a recent Sino-German summit] that 2015 will be the year of innovation partnership,” she continued.

Of the ten specific actions Merkel wants to push, rolling out more broadband (especially to rural areas), promoting research and innovation, more eGovernment, making start-up finance more available and better big data security, are all pretty uncontroversial.

With regard to the last, Merkel said “new safety concepts are required - such as transparency, right of appeal and anonymity”. She added that a balance must be struck and for that she looked to the proposed EU Data Protection Regulation to provide some clarity.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that “her Commissioner” Gunther H-dot Oettinger is currently in charge of the European Commission’s Digital Agenda, many of Markel’s 10 points rely on EU-wide legislation.

She wants an internal European digital market strategy – something Oettinger’s superior digi-veep Andrus Ansip is due to announce in coming months – as well as European agreements on network neutrality and roaming, both already included in the planned Telecoms Package legislation.

Looking at the broadband expansion plan, the government is aiming to have an internet service at a minimum of 50 Mbps everywhere by 2018. In rural areas, mobile broadband will be utilised as well as fixed lines.

More interesting is her call for more public Wi-Fi. The planned Telemedia Act is facing challenges at home and could also run foul of EU law. Still, this is high on Merkel’s priorities.

Finally we learned where Oettinger gets his mania for cars. Merkel says networked mobility is the way to keep Germany at the forefront of auto production. “Germany is known as Autoland and has an excellent reputation and we must keep it that way,” she said before explaining how new applications such as automated driving are the “next big thing”.

Revolutionary? Hardly. ®

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