Brussels, 17/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - The CEOs and directors of the largest European telecommunication companies (BT, Alcatel, Siemens, Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Philips, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom) presented to the European Commission during a round table on the future of telecommunications in the EU held in Brussels on 15 October recommendations on how to speed up hi-output internet connections, encourage the development of third generation mobile services ("3G") and increase productivity and competitiveness in Europe. The high speed internet connections doubled last year, and some Member States have now overtaken the United States in a sector in full expansion, the Telecommunications Commission, Erkki Liikanen, stressed. "The growth rates in broadband are about 100 percent per year at the moment and there seems to be no slowing down (…) Broadband will be a mass market product", he said. According to telecommunications companies, there are several threats to the development of broadband and also to third generation mobile telephony, mainly concerns about copyright protection and the lack of interoperable standards. These discussions come at a time when the Commission recently began a procedure against eight Member States (Spain, Belgium, Greece, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Portugal), which have not transposed European legislation aimed at increasing competition in certain developing sectors, including high speed internet connection.