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THE NEWS THAT THERE ARE NOW 40 MILLION broadband lines in the European Union was revealed by Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding recently. 16.5 million lines were added during 2004 and the second half of the year delivered a 33% increase totalling 9.9 million installations.
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The technology enables faster and better-quality access to the internet and content-rich services such as films, music and television. On the business side broadband 'is a powerful source of productivity gains, improvements in living standards, employment and social cohesion', according to the Commission. It is defined as a line capable of a download speed of 144 Kilobits per second or higher, by comparison most modems have a maximum of 56 Kbps. Distinguishing individual countries by the number of broadband lines per 100 people gives a league table with the Netherlands at the top followed by Denmark, Belgium and Sweden, the UK coming in sixth of the EU 25. At the bottom is Greece while Estonia is doing best of the new entrants. ADSL, which uses existing telephone lines, is by far the most popular form of the technology, but the UK is in the lead in taking up satellite, wireless and cable systems. As competition between existing, 'incumbent' companies and new providers drives prices lower, things are looking good for the EU's i2010 programme which aims to stimulate the fast growing Information Technology sector of the economy. | |
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Chart showing the total number of broadband installations by EU Member | ||
Web sites mentioned on this page are available at :
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Broadband access in the EU: situation at 1 January 2005: |
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/ |
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European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions: | |
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EurLIFE - Front page: |
http://www.eurofound.eu.int/areas/qualityoflife/ |
A NEW INTERNET SITE ON European affairs is always a cause for celebration but doubly so when it deals with our quality of life, and our perceptions of it. Such considerations as 'Is work boring ?', 'Are you able to pay scheduled bills ?' and 'Do you feel left out of your family?' get down to the nitty-gritty of daily existence that many surveys ignore. All the better when the hosts are an organisation with the experience and information resources of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, a Dublin-based EU-funded research body. They recently placed their unrivalled depth of information in these areas on a user-friendly interactive web site.
Reached via a not very prominent icon halfway down the Foundation's front page EurLIFE gives access to 12 quality of life domains with 15 indicators in each. So, for instance, if you choose 'Health' from the list and 'Life expectancy at birth' as your indicator you will bring up a table of 12 years worth of figures covering 28 countries (EU + candidates) differentiated by gender wtih details of the source of the information and the meaning of abbreviations. You can narrow this down to certain years and countries with radio buttons and with one click generate a downloadable chart. The only drawback that the European Review could see to the new web site was that it was too wide for our computer's screen!
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