Updated Study on National Broadband Plans in the EU27

The updated study provides an overview of the connectivity measures in the Member States (MS) defined by the National Broadband Plans and a feasibility assessment of meeting the Digital Agenda for Europe 2020 and Gigabit Society 2025 targets.

The ambition of the update of the study was to provide a retrospective view on reaching the Digital Agenda for Europe 2020 targets and estimate the probability of reaching the Gigabit Society 2025 objectives. As the DESI 2020 indicators are mainly based on the data from 2019, we still operate with probabilities (low, medium & high) when estimating accomplishment of the DAE 2020 targets. The analysis in the study mainly relies on information obtained from the National authorities, the European Commission and key stakeholders from the EU Member States. Overall, the study looks into the connectivity status, the feasibility of reaching the targets and measures defined within the National Broadband Plans. The first main results of the study are, in short, as follows:

1. The National Broadband Plans highly differ regarding their content. All Member States however have an overall strategic approach for the deployment of broadband networks that is implemented in practice.
2. Only Few Member States are close to reaching or reached the Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) 2020 targets, yet the overall progress of the broadband rollout in the recent years in the EU is significant: Mid of 2020, 87,2 % of households had access to 30 Mbps or more and 25.9 % of households subscribe to 100 Mbps or more.
3. The Member States have to intensify their efforts in order to reach or get close to reaching the Gigabit Society targets by 2025. Also, if current broadband rollout speeds continue, providing all citizens with 100 Mbps upgradable to 1 Gbit will be a challenge for most EU Member States.
4. The NBPs are being updated to reflect the Gigabit Society 2025 targets. The new plans and their implementation measures will help Member States in reaching the Gigabit Society targets by 2025.
5. There are a variety of conditions that influence the success of broadband roll-out. Successful NBPs consider their respective starting positions and describe concrete measures that take advantage of the individual strengths and define measures to mitigate the effect of disadvantages.
6. The NBPs of the Member States usually set one or two foci out of the following spheres: Demand Side measures, Supply Side measures, Regulatory and Organizational measures, Transparency measures.
7. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for broadband strategies across Europe. The NBPs seem not to be transferrable, while some measures, however, can be applied under the same conditions.

With the Digital Agenda 2020, the Gigabit Society 2025 targets as well as the Digital Decade targets for 2030, the European Commission has set up a substantial framework for the future digital advancement of Europe. For Europe to fully take advantage of this framework and thus to realise the full potential of digital development, all relevant stakeholders need to maximise their efforts. To this purpose, the Recovery and Resilience Plans and the Connecting Europe Facility Digital programme will be key instruments to accelerate the deployment of fibre and 5G networks, including pan-European backbones.

The European Commission (DG Connect) will continue to monitor trends and National Broadband Plan updates in the Member States in the coming years to ensure progress towards achieving the Gigabit Society 2025 and the Digital Decade 2030 targets.