Forrester Report on Broadband

damien

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/21/forrester_broadband/

Almost half of all households in Western Europe - 72m in total - will be be hooked up to broadband by 2010 as the cost of high-speed net access continues to fall.

The Netherlands and Scandinavia are expected to be broadband beacons thanks to their large proportion of online consumers, competitive markets and relatively low broadband prices, according to Forrester Research.

Portugal, Greece and Ireland will continue to lag in the broadband adoption charts as a result of lower overall levels of net use and PC ownership.

Lars Godell, principal analyst at Forrester, says massive price cuts are "leading to a rapidly declining broadband premium. This, combined with a continued strong supplier push, provides a major incentive to the consumer to make the switch to broadband."

Demand for residential broadband has boomed over the last two years. Take-up grew 81 per cent in 2003 and continued to surge in 2004, clocking 28 per cent growth in the first six months alone, Forrester says.

But it ain't all good news. In most countries, incumbent telcos continue to dominate their national broadband markets with market shares typically of 50-70 per cent. But in some countries broadband competition is beginning to bite: in the UK BT's share is down to 25 per cent while KPN's slice of the Netherland's action is 44 per cent.

"Continued intense competition, triggered by aggressive local loop unbundling (LLU) regulation and renewed focus on broadband triple-play bundles of voice, video, and data...will both drive the market forward and gradually reduce incumbent telcoss market dominance," said Forrester.

This week Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, called on the industry to supply "concrete proposals" to ensure that half of Europe can access broadband by 2010. ®

Another article on it here:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-5542013.html

damien

Forrester Research Page on this

damien

Excerpt from this speech by Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media:

Broadband is one of the main driving forces for competitiveness and progress in the sector, and governments worldwide are increasingly realising that broadband access to the Internet will be central to the economic development of their countries. In Europe, the penetration of broadband internet access has more than doubled in the last year and has now reached an average of 8% as compared to 4,5% in 2003.

Broadband is not simply a faster way to connect to the Internet - it fundamentally changes the way people use the Internet and access all types of contents. For example, a widespread secure broadband infrastructure is essential for the development and delivery of services and applications in areas such as health, business, relations with public administration, learning, etc.

The European Union recognises the importance of exploiting the broadband potential and has been developing a comprehensive broadband strategy for some years. In the coming months, I intend to evaluate and - if need be - to reassess this strategy. I invite ECCA and its members to play an active role in contributing to the strategy which will go beyond the current e-Europe initiative and to respond to the issues identified in the Commission communication on “Challenges for Europe’s Information Society beyond 2005: Starting point for a new EU strategy”, adopted by Commission in November 2004.

We are in particular looking for concrete proposals from the industry on how to achieve the objective set by the Kok report, namely to boost the accessibility of broadband to reach at least 50% by 2010.

An important factor to spread the penetration of broadband and of related services is the existence of fair and efficient competition among network operators. This has been introduced progressively with the liberalisation of the telecommunication market and the new regulatory framework. I therefore see the consistent application of the EU’s regulatory framework for electronic communications services and networks throughout the 25 Member States as a key to a successful single market.

At the beginning of December 2004, the Commission published its 10th report on European Electronic Communications Regulation and Markets. According to this report, twenty Member States have completed the adoption of primary legislation and notified the Commission thereof. Since then, another Member State has completed this process. This is a major achievement, which in all cases has involved either a complete recasting of existing laws or the introduction of major new legislation. However, four Member States, although they have in all cases completed significant steps in the legislative process, still need to adopt primary legislation to transpose the framework Directive.

I will seek every opportunity to make the case for complete implementation of the framework and for the completion of the single market throughout the EU.

However, we cannot limit our activities to implementation. Just like the services and networks to which the regulatory framework is applied, EU legislation for electronic communications must evolve over time in response to technological change, market developments and changes in user demand. Therefore, we already need to start thinking about re-examining the regulatory framework. New challenges such as Voice over Internet Protocol and powerline communications will also require intensive reflections in the course of this year. The general review of the whole regulatory package is planned for 2006, whilst the scope of universal service is already due to be reviewed this year. The Universal Service Directive will be reviewed in its entirety as part of the general review in 2006.

In this context, I am fully aware of your concerns and requests regarding must-carry rules. My services are looking carefully at the application of the relevant provision of the Universal Service Directive, which gives to the Member States the primary responsibility for imposing must-carry obligations.

damien

Challenges for Europe’s Information Society beyond 2005: Starting point for a new EU strategy Word Doc or PDF Doc

There's a public consultation on this that closed on Jan 16th. But send in an email anyway to: infso-eeurope@cec.eu.int

They have already published some responses.

eircomtribunal

Vivian Reding, the new Comms Commissioner is quoted above as saying: "We are in particular looking for concrete proposals from the industry on how to achieve the objective set by the Kok report, namely to boost the accessibility of broadband to reach at least 50% by 2010."

Is something lost in translation?

Broadband accessibility, even in the EU 25 is much higher than 50% now. Does she mean usage of broadband, measured as broadband household penetration?
Anybody to check out the French original speech text?

P.