By Juliana Wimmer
For years now the UK, France and Germany have been working on their broadband initiatives. In Germany, for example, the so called “Breitbandinitiative” was founded in 2002 as a common project of governmental and economic bodies and has since tried to improve broadband coverage in the country.
More recently, these national initiatives have been backed at a European level. In 2007 the European Parliament voted for the development of a European Broadband Policy while the European Recovery Plan states that “broadband connectivity is a key component for the development, adoption and use of information and communication technologies in the economy and in society.”
The importance of broadband as a means of improving business processes and communication is also underlined by a recent OECD study measuring that, by 2011, broadband communication will improve the productivity of developed states by as much as a third.
In Germany, at least, the reality seems to be a long way off the OECD’s prediction. Many German regions still have unacceptable broadband access. Indeed, five million Germans have no access to the internet because no provider is able to give them access. To add to this problem, the economic crisis has negatively impacted investment levels into German broadband initiatives, which are now considered too costly. There’s also infighting between Deutsche Telekom and its competitors about VDSL usage and only a few cities have fibre networks.
Having said all this, Germany (and France!) seem to do better than the UK.
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