Commission presents national strategies for accelerating broadband take-up
The European Commission has published a communication confirming a huge growth in European broadband take-up, and outlining Member States' national strategies for furthering the spread of broadband. The number of people and businesses accessing the Internet at high speed grew by more than 80 per cent in 2003, states the communication, making broadband take-up faster in the EU than in the US. 'Wider, faster access to the Internet is essential to deliver the full promise of the information society,' said Erkki Liikanen, EU Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society. 'We have seen impressive rates of growth, particularly in some of the larger Member States such as France and Italy. But the momentum needs to be maintained, particularly by ensuring competitive markets and the right regulatory conditions for investment.' The Commission's eEurope 2005 Action Plan makes widespread availability and use of broadband a principle objective, to be attained by the end of 2005. The EU-15 Member States have all now outlined how they intend to achieve this goal, and the new Member States will put forward their strategies by the end of 2004. Policy makers are very aware of the potential that broadband offers small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), offering them the chance to boost both their productivity and innovation levels. The Danish Ministry of Science and Technology has consequently launched an initiative to encourage take up in this sector, which will offer training and assistance to SMEs from private consultants. The development of broadband has revolutionised healthcare and medicine. It enables real time collaboration between different organisations and professionals, and makes applications such as teleconsultations and telemonitoring a possibility. The German strategy sets targets for the development of patients' electronic medical records. Education is another area in which broadband can make a huge difference. Portugal's e-U initiative will see the availability of online services and information with fast Internet access in every university in Portugal, and everywhere on campus. Wi-Fi systems will be installed in all 57 universities. The project has financial support from the EU under the Online Scientific Library Project, which places more than 3,500 international scientific journals online. Several strategies, including those of Austria, Italy and Sweden, incorporate financial incentives in the form of fiscal subsidies for broadband connections. In Italy, the 2003 budget included an envelope of 27 million euro for subsidising business and residential broadband access. The initiative led to more than 350,000 new connections, and funding has therefore increased to 30 million euro for the 2004 budget. 'The analysis of broadband strategies reveals that proposed initiatives are based on similar principles, suggesting that broadband deployment in the EU is led by a common approach,' states the communication. On the supply side, these common elements include a recognition of the importance of research for the development of next generation broadband, cost reductions and innovative applications and services, moves to ensure competition between alternative platforms, and using public policy to extend coverage to under-served areas. On the demand side, the national strategies all include demand-aggregation polices in order to improve certainty for investors and to increase use by public administrations, educational and healthcare establishments. The strategies also recognise the role of security and trust in stimulating broadband use, and the need to overcome barriers to the development of new innovative content, progressing in areas such as intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and digital rights management (DRM) systems. While the strategies therefore outline areas where more effort is needed, the EU is doing exceptionally well in terms of broadband take-up, and is closing the gap with its competitors - principally South Korea and Canada. South Korea, with a penetration rate of 23 per cent, is approaching saturation. Some EU Member States, meanwhile, had the fastest growing markets in the second half of 2003.