TELECOMS COUNCIL : EU CALLS FOR 100% BROADBAND COVERAGE BY 2013.

The last Telecoms Council under the Swedish Presidency and EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding was a short one. But the meeting in Brussels, on 18 December 2009, served mainly as a launchpad for the future, post 2010 digital agenda'. The dossier has now been handed to a heavyweight in the current Commission, the current EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, with the priority to extend broadband internet coverage.

EU ministers now have a target: 100% broadband internet coverage by 2013, announced the Swedish Communication Minister Asa Torstensson. This will be no easy task. According to Eurostat, in 2009, 56% of households in the EU27 had broadband connections compared to 49% in 2008 with huge differences between areas varying from 26% in Bulgaria to 80% in Sweden.

As a result, the Telecoms Council has asked the future Commission to include in its new agenda a proposal for a European strategy for broadband which will help member states identify means of financing broadband networks in Europe and to guarantee diversity of services. At the same time the Commission "should examine ways to reduce the differences in deploying broadband throughout the whole of Europe while ensuring fair and effective competition" and eliminating "barriers to the internal market".

This means that EU ministers are hoping to go beyond the telecoms package', the recent reform of EU regulations in this sector having proved to be less ambitious than intended, particularly with regard to the deployment of the new fibre networks which will cost in the region of 300 billion. But, things at the...