It is possible that the European broadband targets will not be met, the European Court of Auditors warned on Tuesday 5 June. With the co-legislators putting the finishing touches to the future electronic communications code, the auditor expresses concern about access to fast and ultra-fast broadband in particular.
The report looks at the progress made by the member states towards the three targets of the Digital Agenda up to 2020 and includes lessons learned to complete the gigabit society by 2025. It concerns the programming periods 2007-2013 and 2014-2020, and looks in particular at the situation in Ireland, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Italy (which represent around 40% of the EU population and a broad range of different situations). It concludes with recommendations for strategic planning, the regulatory environment and reinforcing competition through financing.
Mixed results
Essentially, the Court of Auditors notes that although broadband coverage has progressed overall throughout the EU, it is unlikely that the member states will achieve the objectives of the EUROPE 2020 strategy – namely, fast broadband (30 Mbps or more) for all and ultra-fast broadband (more than 100 Mbps) for half of all households – or the objectives of the ‘gigabit society’, which refers to ultra-fast broadband for all.
In 2017, just 80% of the population had access to fast broadband and 15% to an ultra-fast connection. The Court of Auditors observes that connectivity is poorer in rural areas than cities, which it puts down to the fact that these areas are seen by the private sector as less profitable than cities. Certainly, in 14 member states, coverage in rural areas was below 50% by the end of the first half of 2017, with particularly wide gaps in Finland. The auditor concludes that only two of the five member states audited (Hungary and Germany) may be able to report broadband coverage of 30 Mbps by 2020 and that three of them (Italy, Hungary and Ireland) are in a strong position for ultra-broadband in 2025.
Germany under the spotlight
Amongst other things, the report identifies weaknesses in the legal and competitive environment in Ireland and Germany. Although the case of Ireland concerns delays on the public markets, the situation is of greater concern in Germany as it relates to: difficulties in changing broadband access provider, non-compliance with the advertised maximum data transmission speed and problems from addressing the problem of vectoring by introducing virtual unbundled local access (VULA).
The report concludes with a series of recommendations, which for instance urge the member states to draw up new plans in 2019 for the period after 2020 and call upon the Commission to clarify the guidelines on state aid regarding 100 Mpbs and the ‘gigabit society’. It will be presented to the budgetary control committee of the European Parliament in the coming days. The author of the report, Iliana Ivanova, said that this is not the end of the report, but only the beginning. She went on to stress that she did not know what the next steps would be, but that it is certain that the Internet of things is just around the corner and will require better connectivity. To consult the report, see: https://bit.ly/2Jg48aE . (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)