The norwegian mapping authority announced today they are (finally) going to provide free map services! This has been long awaiting in the mapping community. Release of the services will be December 1. 2009 – however they provide some information on what to expect:

There will be two main services, one full WMS service and one cached version of, probably, the most popular WMS-requests. Limits are 300 requests pr. user pr. 24 hour for the WMS and 10000 request pr. user pr. 24 hour for the cached version. It is not explicitly defined whether this constraint will reside on the client side or for the system – however I reckon they will put the constraint on the system and not the client – and probably increase the WMS constraint a bit, or provide cheap “WMS request plans”. [update] According to @paalkr the constraint is on client side.

The data released covers most of the general applicable data in full detail!

In sum this is great! Finally the mapping authority is part of the modernized mapping game!

More on this (Norwegian mostly)

• Newsflash: http://www.statkart.no/Gratis+karttjenester.d25-SwJfY1-.ips
• General information: http://www.statkart.no/nor/Land/Kart_og_produkter/visningstjenester/
• Technical overview: http://www.statkart.no/?module=Articles;action=Article.publicShow;ID=14087
• NRKBeta: http://nrkbeta.no/2009/11/12/kartverket-frigir-kartene-sine/
• VG.no (“Mapping authority shares the crown jewels”): http://www.vg.no/teknologi/artikkel.php?artid=592216