HØYKOM - Subsidies to broadband communication

HØYKOM is a 3-year (1999-2001) programme for subsidising and stimulating public sector in the use of applications based on advanced broadband communication services. Broadband is here defined as a transmission capacity of 1 megabit per second or more.

An applicant to HØYKOM can ask for a grant equivalent to the applicant's own capital, which means that HØYKOM covers up to a maximum of 50 percent of the total documented project costs.

The letters HØYKOM is an abbreviation of a Norwegian expression that stands for high capacity communication. The overall purpose of the programme is to stimulate the public sector's demand for broadband services. The public sector's extended use of broadband communication is supposed to significantly contribute to a well-functioning broadband services market, making the broadband services more available for SME's and consumers as well, also outside the more populated urban areas.

The programme has the following goals:
- Through demand from public sector, for instance county administrations, hospitals, schools, make the broadband services vendors interested in the rural areas, and thereby contribute to the development of a broadband infrastructure.
- To develop better and user-friendly services from public sector, using broadband communication.
- To make the different public sector bodies work in a more efficient way, using broadband communication applications.
- To stimulate inter-organisational co-operation based on broadband communication.
- To gain experiences from use of broadband based solutions and a broad variety of applications.
- To develop the general knowledge of broadband communication technology in public sector.

HØYKOM has a budget of MNOK 18 a year, and is at present supporting about 35 projects throughout the country. The northernmost counties are slightly over-represented in the project portfolio.

HØYKOM has a special focus upon distributed service areas, such as education, health care and community information services. In these areas, there are projects that take in use applications that need high resolution and high transmission capacity, such as Internet-based interactive learning, telemedicine, on-line video surveillance, geographic information systems and topographic maps, video and film distribution, and 3D animations over Internet. Also, there are projects where broadband communication has made it possible to reorganise the IT services, using ASP (Application Service Provider) facilities.

Four on-going projects:
1. Distributed, virtual service office in the community of Torsken, Troms county, northern Norway: a public information desk in one part of the community, geographically separated from the community centre, but inter-connected using broadband communication. The virtual service office gives all inhabitants easy access to the public information services -included the possibility to reach the appropriate civil servants using live video.

2. In the county of Telemark, one project has the goal to improve the overall patient treatment at the county's hospitals, using digital radioscopy based on broadband communication between the hospitals. This project includes substantial investments in infrastructure and end user equipment, and will give access to patient data and radiologists, independent of time and place.

3. In the community of Halden, broadband communication infrastructure make it possible to develop and offer multimedia content to the inhabitants, tourists and visitors, through information "kiosks" located at various public places in the community.

4. In the community of Alta, the inhabitants have access to home care services that are supported by radio-based broadband communication. The home care personnel use mobile equipment that offer two-way high capacity communication and access to central databases, while in the field.

HØYKOM is a program under the Research Council of Norway, but is administrated from Guide Consulting AS.

The program co-ordinator is Gjermund Lanestedt,
tel.: +47 22 34 72 00
e-mail: gjermund.lanestedt@guide.no