Support for Broadband rollout

The EU's broadband strategy

Broadband Europe promotes the Commission's strategy on Connectivity for a European Gigabit Society by 2025 as well as the vision set by the Digital Decade for Europe’s digital transformation by 2030 to connect European citizens and businesses with very high-capacity networks, which will enable innovative products, services and applications to all citizens and business across the EU.

This Gigabit Society vision for 2025 relies on three main strategic objectives:

• Gigabit connectivity for all of the main socio-economic drivers;
• uninterrupted 5G coverage for all urban areas and major terrestrial transport paths;
• access to connectivity offering at least 100 Mbps for all European households.

The ambition of the Digital Decade is that by 2030:

• all European households are covered by a Gigabit network;
• all populated areas are covered by 5G.

Support for broadband rollout

EU businesses, national, regional and local authorities and project managers working on broadband deployment play a key role in reaching the EU's Connectivity objectives. The EU supports network deployment by offering guidance, facilitating sharing of best practices and informing citizens of network availability in their area. Project managers can find more information on the website, as well as refer to the Broadband Competence Offices (BCOs) network, which brings together experts to discuss and share technical support for broadband deployment. Rural and remote areas are a particular challenge for attracting investment in broadband networks. The Broadband Handbook for rural and remote areas helps policy makers and broadband project managers to rollout high-speed networks in challenging areas.

Connecting Europe Broadband Fund

In 2017, the Commission, together with the European Investment Bank, launched the fund to develop broadband network infrastructure across underserved areas of Europe. Under the Connecting Europe Facility, the Commission invested a 100 million Euro into the fund. The fund combines private and public investments to support the financing of smaller scale, higher risk broadband projects. The projects will help the Commission achieve connectivity objectives through projects carried out by startups and small companies, deploying the best-performing, available tech in underserved areas. Find out more about the fund.