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The Digital Agenda: Broadband speed increases in Europe
Posted: November 30, 2010
Broadband connections in Europe is today much faster than a year ago, according to new statistics launched by the European Commission. In July 2010, 29% of the broadband connections in the EU had a minimum speed of 10 megabits per second (Mbps), an increase of 15% in relation to the year before.
The broadband continues to grow in Europe and has now 25.6 subscribers per. 100 inhabitants (compared with 23.9 a year ago). In additon to that the annual growth in mobile broadband is remarkable at 45%.
- Fast broadband is our digital oxygen and essential for the welfare and wellbeing in Europe, says Neelie Kroes, Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda.
The well-established and fast broadband connection in the EU is of great importance to the ICT industry. In the Øresund Region, the EU project BrandIT consider the broadband connection as a unique selling proposition for the ICT cluster of the region.
- We believe that having an excellent digital infrastructure is important to attract investors, students and researcher in the future, says Camilla Krogh Christensen project Coordinator for BrandIT and continues;
- On top of that the Øresund Region holds a top 3 placing in e-readiness and a first place in network readiness. Factors that we believe create great potential for continued growth in the ICT industry.
Continued growth
The new statistics also show that the number of broadband connections continued to grow in Europe by 8% between July 2009 and July 2010 (last year the growth rate was 11%). In July 2010 there were approximately 128 million fixed broadband connections in EU and of these, 9 million were esablished after July 2009. There are about 220 million households in the EU.
But there is still a long way to go before EU can meet the Commission's goal that all Europeans should be able to connect to ordinary broadband connections by 2013.
- We need to do more to reach our targets for very fast broadband. In particular, we need urgent agreement on our proposal to ensure radio spectrum is available for mobile broadband, for which demand is growing very fast, says Neelie Kroes.
Source: Europe’s Information Society and BrandIT
