European developments December 2016

The European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced the Connecting Europe Broadband Fund to support investment in broadband network infrastructure across underserved areas of Europe. The fund should raise at least €500 million from private and public investors, including the EIB and the European Commission. The European Commission will invest €100 million into the Fund from the Connecting Europe Facility. This fund will be open for National Promotional Banks and Institutions (NPBIs) to participate; the three largest European NPBIs have expressed interest as possible anchor investors

The European Commission also announced that the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission have agreed on how to coordinate the use of the 700 MHz band to “bring mobile internet services to all Europeans and new applications across borders, thus facilitating the introduction of 5G as of 2020.”

The European Council adopted a partial general approach on a proposal to promote free internet in local communities by means of the EU-funded WiFi4EU scheme (also see Out-Law and this previous post). The scheme aims to help provide free WiFi in town halls, public parks and other centres of public life.

In a speech to the Institute of Government, Ofcom Chief Executive Sharon White set out her views on how the communications regulation should operate following the UK’s departure from the European Union, so as to protect the interests of UK consumers, promote competition and investment and support UK companies’ ability to trade successfully in the EU and globally. She suggested that the UK should seek to preserve the best of the EU telecoms framework and seize the opportunity to make improvements, whilst taking care to avoid making things worse.

Other European news this month:

• The Fibre to the Home (FTTH) Council Europe sent an open letter to the telecoms ministers of the European Union highlighting the importance of fibre to the EU’s broadband ambitions.
• The European Commission published data on broadband access in the EU as of July 2016, including the fixed and mobile broadband subscriptions, data on competition, broadband speeds and next generation access (NGA) technologies.