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European Commission To Invest $12 Billion In Superfast Broadband

The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, is about to propose investing over $12 billion throughout the EU in super-fast broadband. In part, the scheme aims to stimulate more investment in rural broadband, but also to create a single market for digital public services.

If successful, the plan will, by 2020, Europeans will have access to networks delivering at least 30 megabits per second, and that half the population – now about 500,000,000 – will receive more than 100 Mbps.

According to one report:

“The Commission also hopes its plan would immediately create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the construction and telecoms equipment industries, as efforts to install fibre optic cable networks increase with the additional backing.”

EU plan to spend billions on boosting broadband speeds (BBC, October 16, 2011)