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“Europe must talk less about megabytes and more about gigabytes.” Gunnar Hökmark, MEP
ish and create economic growth without being dependent on technological speeds and capacity of the past. We need new digital highways that can accommodate the growth generated by new services. If Europe wants to be in the lead, that is,” he remarked. “Because we all know what's at stake. We all know the enormous growth prospects for those economies that manage to tap into the new opportunities offered by the Internet. For example: A doubling of mobile data use leads to an increase of 0.5 percentage points in GDP per capita growth rates On average, ICT accounts for 6% of the
EU’s GDP and the digital economy is growing at 7 times the rate. Internet economy has accounted for 21 % of GDP growth in the world’s most advanced economies in the past five years. If the Internet was a national economy, it would rank in the world’s top five But the big potential of the Internet economy lies in the productivity gains that it can offer to other sectors. When moving towards a cloud based economy these productivity gains will be even bigger in the future. Europe needs to act now if we want to lead this development. If we want to transform the competitiveness of our industries and our services sector, if we want the telecom and Internet industry to prosper and invest in Europe, if we want to kickstart European economy out of the crisis, if we want to attract investments from all over the world. If we want to create growth in Europe.” “If we are happy to be number three or four we can just follow what others are doing. And they will do and do, and do and do. This leads me to the second conclusion that Europe needs to raise its game and ambitions if we are going to reap the benefits of the new digital revolution Just look around the world: Only 20 % of the 2.1 billion Internet users in the world come from Europe. Economies such as South Korea, Japan and Hong-Kong are connecting their markets with fibre reaching around 50 % of the households today. China now has over 1 billion mobile phone users Russia has emerged as a clear fibre leader in our region, adding 2.2m new fibre subscribers in the second half of 2012 – more than all of Europe’s 27 Member States combined. This is all happening while only 1.3 per cent
of Europeans use lines that deliver 100 Mbps or more,” he lamented. FRAGMENTATION. “This is all happening while Europe's political vision is to deliver 30 Mbps to all and 100 Mbps to 50 per cent by 2020. This is all happening while Europe's telecom market is fragmented, suffering from 27 different rules, whether it is about copyright regimes or content distribution. Is this the right answer to getting Europe back on a growth path? Is this the right answer to ensure that Europe becomes the leading global hub for the Internet economy? Is this the right answer to drive investments to Europe,” he asked. “No. It is not! The true logic of the global economy is convergence which means that everything can happen anywhere. And it will happen were the best conditions are available. I want Europe to be home to this new digital revolution that will develop even more rapidly in the next 10 years than what we have seen in the last 10 years,” he declared. This led to his third conclusion: “Europe must talk less about megabytes and more about gigabytes. In Japan we have already seen laboratory experiences transmitting information via fibre with a speed of 14 trillion bytes a second. That will not be the everyday reality tomorrow, but tells us something of how rapidly the borders and the limitations are changing. In South-Korea, 1 Gigabyte is becoming normal. In the rural village of Sunne in the forests deep in Sweden they have 1 Gigabyte. In a small community in Arkholme — a tiny village in the UK, they have one Gigabyte. And when I am at my country house in the most Southern Sweden I have a higher speed by 4G than at home in the centre of Stockholm with fixed broadband,” he reported.
FTTH welcomes French broadband initiative
The FTTH Council Europe has welcomed the announcement of the French government that it is to invest €20 billion into ultra-fast broadband infrastructure with a special focus on future-proof fibre in the coming years. The European Union government decided to reduce the broadband budget in the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) from €9 billion to €1 billion. According to Karin
Ahl, president of the FTTH Council Europe, in doing so, they missed an opportunity to make a strong statement towards the importance of broadband and of the Digital Agenda in Europe. “By reducing the CEF budget, the European governments also took the individual responsibility to ensure a positive investment framework for future-proof fibre broadband in their countries. With François Hollande’s announcement, France made a clear statement that it is willing to take this responsibility. The FTTH Council
Europe welcomes this decision and hopes that other EU countries will follow the example of France very soon,” she stated. Ahl had earlier expressed disappointment that the EU Member States did not agree on the digital part of the Connecting Europe Facility. “By reducing the financial envelope down to €1 billion for telecommunications there will be no room for the support of fibre infrastructure investments. The decision shows that there still is a lack of understanding of European Governments on the impor-
tance of future-proof broadband networks. Governments all over the world increase their efforts to ensure the availability of real broadband connections for their citizens. Therefore the European Union has just missed an important chance to make the right decision, not only for the years to come but also, and more importantly, for the future of a competitive Europe,” she stated. She confirmed that the FTTH Council Europe would continue ?G2Vff?'G2F?7&VFRv&V?W72f?"F?R???'F?6R?bf?'&R66W72?WGv?&?2??WW&?R?#?FV?Wf?6???