The European Union (EU) is making ‘remarkable progress’ in broadb...

Internet jumped 80%, Liikanen said at a news briefing on a European Commission (EC) communication on national broadband strategies slated for adoption today (Wed.). Wireline continues to dominate European broadband, he said but wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi, 3G and satellites are beginning to show up in the market. Too, he said, “mobile is really moving from voice to data.” Between this and last Jan., Liikanen said, broadband growth in top performers Denmark and Belgium continued at a fast clip, while deployment in other member states, which has lagged, is starting to pop. Korea leads the world in broadband takeup -- it’s in 67% of Korean households -- but the market there is becoming saturated, he said. European countries now compare “rather favorably” in the global picture, he said. All 15 original member states have unveiled broadband strategies and the 10 new member countries will do so later this year, Liikanen said. The various national plans share certain characteristics, he said, including the desire to give the market a chance to work before regulating. However, he said, in areas less densely populated, the market isn’t working and the “last mile must be opened for competition.” The public sector must try to foster uptake by using broadband as a platform for connecting schools, hospitals and local govts. to provide e-health, e- govt., and distance learning services, he said. Many member states admitted May 1 are already approaching the level of the original 15 in mobile services, Liikanen said, and some are closing in on the EU-15 in Internet usage. Once new members have fully implemented the EU’s new regulatory framework -- 4 have yet to do so -- the situation could change quickly, he said. The challenge will be for the EU-10 to guarantee such things as independent regulatory schemes and universal service via fixed and mobile networks, he said. In their favor, Liikanen said, the 10 accession countries are strong in the science and math arenas and they already have a good record of being able to move toward Internet adoption without going through all the steps the EU-15 had to negotiate. Asked to explain why broadband rollout is faster in Europe despite the availability of better content in the U.S., Liikanen said the U.S.’s commitment to broadband uptake has waned in the last year or 2 while Europe and Asia have made it a higher priority. The EU has made broadband promotion a public policy issue, has fixed targets where govt. can make a difference and has mobilized regions throughout Europe that have mapped their current and future deployment. There are challenges on the content side, he said -- Europe needs multilingual content, digital rights management (DRM) technologies, and more security online. DRM is a longterm solution that could benefit business, individual users and carriers, he said, but it must have open standards and be interoperable. Asked if he'd back doing away with intellectual property-related levies charged on various devices, Liikanen said in principle, commercial users should pay for services online as well as offline. On other topics, Liikanen said: (1) VoIP “in principle” shouldn’t be regulated because it’s a new technology. However, he said, the EC is looking into whether VoIP offerings can fulfill universal service obligations such as access to emergency services without regulation. (2) All regulatory steps for the launch of new top-level domain .eu are complete. By July, the EC hopes to have signed agreements with both the new .eu registry and ICANN. By Sept., the registry should be up and running, and a sunrise registration period for trademarked and other protected names launched. Liikanen wouldn’t disclose how much .eu domains will cost, saying only the price “should be reasonable.”