European developments March 2017

The European Commission published the 2017 update of its Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI); ISP Review reported that the UK had dropped to seventh place in the rankings, which provide an overview of the performance of the 28 EU Member States in a wide range of areas including connectivity and digital skills and the digitisation of businesses and public services. Overall the Commission found that the EU is making progress but the gap between top digital players and lower-performing countries is still too wide. More efforts and investments are needed to make the most of the Digital Single Market. The index was accompanied by Advancing Europe’s Digital Future, a paper with key messages for EU leaders and decision-makers.

Digital Day, the digital part of the official celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome, took place in Rome on 23rd March 2017 (more here). Ministers signed declarations to put the European Union at the forefront of global high-performance computing and to carry out cross-border trials in connected driving. They also launched a European platform combining national initiatives to help European industry digitise, adapt and innovate.

The High Level Group of the European Commission's Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) published a new independent scientific opinion on Cybersecurity in the Digital Single Market. Recommendations include making systems more secure by avoiding 'backdoors' that bypass normal authentication processes and by using state of the art standards for encryption, strengthening Europe's cybersecurity industry and improving the coordination and sharing of information on cyber-incidents across Europe.

The European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) published new guidance for digital service providers on incident reporting under EU cybersecurity laws, which are intended to ensure “a high common level of security of networks and information systems within the Union so as to improve the functioning of the internal market.” Also see commentary from Out-Law.

Other European developments this month:

• The Commission launched a consultation on the review of the Significant Market Power (SMP) Guidelines with a view to updating them in time for the implementation of the new European Electronic Communications Code. The update will take changes in the telecoms markets and recent developments in regulatory and competition law into account.
• The Commission also published the results from a study into Member States’ National Broadband Plans and a consultation on the Next Generation Internet (NGI) Initiative.
• Telecompaper reported the announcement by Italy's Ministry of Economic Development that pre-commercial 5G trials will take place in five cities (Milan, Prato, L’Aquila, Bari and Matera). The Italian government will make spectrum in the 3.4 and 3.8 GHz bands available for the trials; the European Commission’s 5G Action Plan requires Member States to identify at least one city for 5G trials by 2018.
• Telegeography reported that nearly 90% of all households in Paris (1.357 million homes) are covered by fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks, with Orange deploying open-access fibre-optic networks for 67% of those. Seventy-five percent of the residential subscribers in Paris are now connected to a FTTH service.
• Out-Law reported that Germany's federal government plans to roll out a gigabit internet service across Germany by 2025, through a government and private consortium known as Netzallianz Digitales Deutschland.
• The Swedish Government published a strategy for a completely connected Sweden by 2025. Ninety-five percent of all households and businesses should be able to access a minimum 100 Mbit/s service by the year 2020; by 2025, 98 percent of the population should have access to broadband at a minimum capacity of 1 Gbit/s at home, as well as in the workplace, the remaining 1.9 percent at a minimum capacity of 100 Mbit/s and 0.1 percent at a minimum capacity of 30 Mbit/s.