Broadband speeds in Europe have risen sharply in only a year, suggest official EC figures. In July 2010, 29 percent of broadband lines in Europe ran at speeds of at least 10 Mbps, revealed Commission research. By contrast in July 2009 only 15 percent of broadband lines were capable of hitting that speed. Despite the higher rates, the Commission warned that a lot of work needed to be done to meet Europe-wide targets on access and speed. The EC has set a target of giving every European citizen access to a speed of 30Mbps or more by 2020 and half of all the 220 million households in the region access to 100mbps broadband. The size of the task the EC has set itself was revealed by figures in the research which showed the relatively small numbers using the highest speed connections. About 5 percent of all broadband lines can run at 30mbps and only 0.5 percent at 100Mbps or higher. More Europeans are signing up for broadband too, found the research, with nearly 26 of every 100 citizens using high-speed net links. In 2009, the figure was almost 24. But this growth was dwarfed by that of mobile broadband which saw a 45 percent in increase in users. Commissioner Kroes said member states needed to speed up their efforts to free spectrum to support on-the-go broadband. Denmark and the Netherlands lead the way in European broadband with high-speed links already available to about 80 percent of households.
http://www.ejc.net/media_news/broadband_in_europe_speeding_up/
