“Optic fibre to all houses on Gotland” is one of the five winners of the European Broadband Awards 2017 competition. The project brought fibre to the whole Gotland island in the Baltic Sea. The results show that at least 85% of residents and 50% of people owning a summer house have joined the project. The public administrations have spent EUR 4.3 million, of which EUR 2 million from the EU funds. The people of Gotland payed some EUR 12 million. To keep the costs low, people offered their land for cable rollout and even did the digging themselves. 57 thousand people now have fibre in Gotland.
The European Commission together with the Member States have set up Broadband Competence Offices to advise local and regional authorities on ways to develop broadband, and help citizens and businesses get better internet. At the same time the Commission presented a 5 point toolkit on how to bring better broadband in rural areas of the EU.
Broadband Days 2017 brings together the most important actors in the broadband deployment and policy making scene. This event will feature the launch of the Broadband Competence Offices Network and announcement of the winners of Broadband Awards 2017. Plenary sessions and panel discussions will focus on broadband development from different perspectives.
ASNET is a WiFi project that delivers 130 Mbps connectivity and mobile coverage in the rural area of Asnaes in Denmark. Jes Jessen, founder of the project, tells the story of how this community-led network came to use windmills to bring 4G wireless broadband to the households and businesses of the Asnaes peninsula. The project was 50% co-funded by the EAFRD LEADER programme, and the citizens created a co-operative association in order to cover the rest of the costs.
The European Commission and the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) have just launched a joint platform to help high-speed broadband reach all European regions, notably rural and sparsely populated areas.
Two-part video interview with B4RN – Broadband for the Rural North – a community-owned company started by volunteers to provide hyper-fast (1000 Mbps) symmetric broadband to every property in the community. It is described as the fastest residential network in the world, and has grown from 8 to 40 parishes, adding 150 customers per week.
The European Broadband mapping project is developing a mapping application that will provide a georeferenced overview of the quality of fixed and mobile broadband services across Europe. The project gathers data from both national, public as well as private, international initiatives. A third workshop is being held to discuss with regulatory bodies and experts preliminary findings from a cross-country and cross-initiative comparison of connectivity data and to consult on mapping methodologies. So far more than 150 stakeholders have been involved in this project.
The broadband investment guide, available in 22 languages, will help local, regional and national authorities to develop long-term development plans to bring fast internet to their communities. The handbook gives practical tips to support public authorities in the preparation of broadband investment projects, including those co-financed from the European Structural and Investment Funds and the Connecting Europe Facility.
