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EU Report Reveals Minimal Progress on European Superfast Broadband Targets

Posted: 01st Jun, 2011 By: MarkJ
europe mapeuropean union flagThe European Commission (EC) has published its first report into the progress of their Digital Agenda, which among other things seeks to bring "basic broadband" to all Europeans by 2013 and to ensure that, by 2020, everybody has access to an internet service speed of 30Mbps or faster (with 50% or more using a 100Mbps product). Sadly efforts to deploy the new generation of superfast services have so far proven to be "disappointing".

Progress has been good in most areas, with "basic broadband" in particular becoming increasingly available even in remote locations. Likewise 65% of the EU population now make regular use of the internet, which is up from 60% last year and just 10% off the target of 75% by 2015. However, 40% of households still have no broadband connection.

The VP of the EC's Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, said:

"A year after the launch of the Digital Agenda I note progress. However, Member States, industry, civil society and the Commission need to do more if we want to maximise the Agenda's potential for retaining Europe's competitiveness, stimulating innovation, and creating jobs and prosperity. I call on everybody to consider the massive long term benefit of acting decisively now, especially in high speed broadband."

Overall, and despite some good progress, just 10% of the EC's Digital Agenda actions have been completed, while 80% are on track and the remaining 10% are delayed. This is best illustrated by the following graphic (below), which outlines Europe's progress towards its 13 key performance targets. The outer line marks a 100% achievement, while the areas marked in Yellow and Blue cover progress for the years 2010 and 2011 respectively.

europe digital agenda progress 2011

It's immediately clear from this that the "deployment and take-up of ultra-fast broadband is still low", with only 5% of all fixed lines delivering speeds of 30Mbps and above, although 28.7% are covered by such services. The EC also admits that the sustainability of the current annual growth rate of almost 50% in Next Generation Access (NGA) lines is "not yet ensured".

None of this should come as much of a shock. It takes time to rollout such services, not least because of the complicated and time consuming regulatory and economic hurdles that must first be overcome. The UK is a perfect example, where Telco's are still busy trying to agree upon access to BT Group's national network of cable ducts and telegraph poles (here).

However, the UK is actually ahead of Europe in most other areas. Some 80% of the population are regular and frequent Internet users and the UK also records some of the highest take-up rates for various Internet services. For example,44.8% of UK lines can deliver download speeds of 10Mbps+, which compares with an EU average of 38.9%. There is almost full DSL coverage and broadband take-up is at 32% (EU 27%).
Digital Agenda Scoreboard 2011
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/digital-agenda/scoreboard/index_en.htm
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