Primary care

Primary care is the provision of essential infrastructure, services (universal service), price support and transfer services for the entire population.

In view of the perceived by the public sector primary care is administratively also spoken of the general interest.

General

A primary care assumes that this is offered at a reasonable price - including in disadvantaged areas (eg in terms of population density or topography), where this would not be worth on purely economic criteria for the provider or for the state. To this end, invested either the state itself in the infrastructure (eg, water supply, power supply, road / transport routes, post and telecommunications, public health) or subsidized staple food, Agricultural products ( see Agricultural Policy ), energy ( see current price ) or fuels, or ensures or financed welfare and Social Security, or he cooperates for legally defined primary care contracts with private, most important suppliers.

The encompassed by the primary care infrastructure is regularly adapted to changing economic and social needs.

Examples

Basic care is one among others the provision of public facilities / infrastructure for the general public:

Traffic and transport sector ( Public Transit)
Gas, water and electricity supply
Refuse collection
Sewage disposal
Educational and cultural institutions
Hospitals
Cemeteries
Public baths
Postal service etc.

Primary Health Care

Energy

Broadcasting

The German public broadcasting has as part of its program mandate pursuant to § 11 para 2 and 3 of the Interstate Broadcasting Agreement ( Interstate Broadcasting Agreement ) the obligation, "in the interest of freedom of information and democracy, to secure a diverse, comprehensive and balanced media offering." This program contract provides for public broadcasters to ensure an independent primary care with information, education, culture and entertainment dar. According to § 11 Section 1 of the Interstate Treaty on Broadcasting public broadcasting has the "production and distribution of radio and television programs as a medium and factor of the process of free individual and public opinion to act. "Even the Federal Constitutional Court has dealt with so-called primary care. Primary care is neither a minimum nor limited supply them to the informational and forming part of the program for the court; rather, it is a supply of programs that correspond to the classical broadcasting job. Primary care encompasses three elements, namely the supply of the entire population with radio programs, the organization of a full program and ensuring the diversity of opinion within the program. Primary care is a " uniform as possible all interested citizens erreichendes continuous radio program on social conditions." A vast promotional financing of public service broadcasting threatens the basic service and was thus unconstitutional. At least in public broadcasting programs can therefore by the transmitters are not designed completely autonomous, but must be collected with respect to such statutory and constitutional requirements. Thus, there is a limited program design freedom in public channels. Private broadcasters, however, are not subject to these strict requirements and only need to provide a minimum level of substantive balance, objectivity and mutual respect. The program must be diversity of opinion and pluralism in private broadcasters secure (§ 25 Interstate Treaty on Broadcasting ), a program advisory board to advise the organs of a transmitter ( § 32 Interstate Broadcasting Agreement ).

Broadband access

In the industrialized countries is a debate about whether the broadband Internet access must be included in the basic service catalog to counteract the digital divide in society. As has just begun here in the EU about the debate and no concrete steps have been planned, in Switzerland in 2008 of broadband Internet access as a public service ( public service ) was included in the statutory catalog of services of primary care. The guaranteed supply base has now reached at least 1,000 kilobits per second ( kbit / s ) when downloading and 100 kbit / s uplink.

The German federal government has already announced in 2009 with its broadband strategy a quasi- primary care, without this be enshrined in law. Thereafter, should the end of 2010 all households a powerful broadband connection ( at least 128 kbit / s in both directions) are provided. And by the year 2014, also " connections are available for 75 percent of households with transfer rates of at least 50 megabits per second are available, with the aim to have such high-performance broadband widely available as soon as possible. "

Bandwidths of up to 825 megabits per second were in October 2010 to under laboratory conditions already been measured in copper-based broadband networks - which are the weakest link in the fixed network in general. Depending on the state of development of networks are now (as of December 2011) but in practice - under favorable conditions - maximum of 360 megabits per second realized. The networks are constantly being expanded by their operators, with the expansion, however - primarily takes place in urban areas and big cities - for economic reasons.

According to the TÜV Rheinland to the propagation of fast Internet in the Federal Republic than 99 percent of households were provided with the opportunity for broadband access by the end of 2011. The said 99 percent with a transfer rate of up to 1 megabit per second and about 48 percent with up to 50 megabits per second could be connected to the grid.

Service (economics) Wastewater Water park Federal Constitutional Court of Germany

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