Broadband coverage in Europe 2014 : mapping progress towards the coverage objectives of the Digital Agenda : executive summary.
Date: 2015-09-04
Institutions: Directorate-General for the Information Society and Media
Subjects: Europe, digital technology, information technology, new technology, telecommunications equipment, telecommunications industry, telecommunications policy, transmission network

FR 

 Broadband Coverage 
in Europe 2014 
 Mapping progress towards the coverage 
objectives of the Digital Agenda 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (EN)  

A study prepared for the European Commission 
DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology 
by:  

Digital 
Agenda for 
Europe 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This study was carried out for the European Commission by 

IHS Inc. 
133 Houndsditch 
London EC3A 7BX 
United Kingdom 
http://ihs.technology.com 

Valdani Vicari & Associati 
Unit 116 
22 Highbury Grove  
N52EF London 
www.vva.it    

Internal identification 
Contract number: 30-CE-0599698/00-19 
SMART 2013/0054 

DISCLAIMER 

By the European Commission, Directorate-General of Communications Networks, Content and Technology.  

The  information  and  views  set  out  in  this  publication  are  those  of  the  author(s)  and  do  not  necessarily 
reflect the official opinion of the Commission. The Commission does not guarantee the accuracy of the data 
included in this study. Neither the Commission nor any person acting on the Commission’s behalf may be 
held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein. 

ISBN: 978-92-79-50414-3 
DOI: 10.2759/504023 

 © European Union, 2015. All rights reserved. Certain parts are licensed under conditions to the EU.  

Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Executive Summary 

• 

• 

• 

The Broadband Coverage in Europe study is designed to monitor the progress of EU 
Member  States  toward  their  specific  broadband  coverage  objectives  –  namely: 
‘Universal  Broadband  Coverage  by  2013’  and  ‘Universal  Broadband  Coverage  with 
speeds at least 30 Mbps’.  

In 2013, DG Connect selected the consortium of IHS & VVA to run the project. IHS & 
VVA surveyed NRAs and telecommunications groups across each participating state 
to  compile  the  requisite  information,  with  the  first  annual  report  published  in  2014. 
This document builds on this previous report and where possible, IHS & VVA adopted 
similar data collection and analysis methods to those implemented by Point Topic, the 
previous  contractor,  in  the  period  2010-2012.  This  was  done  in  order  to  ensure 
comparability of datasets for the purposes of time-series assessment. 

This report covers 31 countries across Europe – the EU28, plus Norway, Iceland and 
Switzerland,  and  analyses  the  availability  of  nine  broadband  technologies  (DSL, 
VDSL,  cable  modem,  DOCSIS  3,  FTTP,  WiMAX,  HSPA,  LTE  and  satellite)  across 
each market, at national and rural levels. In addition, various combination categories 
indicating  the  availability  of  one  or  more  forms  of  broadband  connection  are  also 
published.  These  cover  overall  fixed  and  wireless  broadband  availability,  fixed 
broadband availability and next generation access (NGA) availability. 

•  The results show that over 216 million EU households (99.4%) had access to at least 
one  of  the  main  fixed  or  mobile  broadband  access  technologies  at  the  end  of  2014 
(excluding  satellite).  While  the  overall  broadband  coverage  remains  unchanged,  an 
increase  in  the  absolute  coverage  by  over  three  million  households  has  been 
recorded compared to 2013. This is due to the fact that in some countries and regions 
the  number  of  households  is  growing  faster  than  the  number  of  homes  passed  by 
broadband networks. 

 
 
 
 
• 

For  the  same  reason,  the  overall  fixed  broadband  coverage  shows  a  negligible 
decrease  from  97.2%  in  2013  to  96.9%  at  the  end  of  2014.  The  absolute  fixed 
broadband coverage increased during 2014 by over 2.4 million households across the 
study countries.   

•  As  in  the  previous  year,  an  increase  in  coverage  was  reported  for  next  generation 
access services (VDSL, DOCSIS 3.0 and FTTP), which increased by 6.2 percentage 
points  compared  to  the  previous  edition  of  the  study,  translating  to  15.5  million  new 
households gaining access to next generation broadband. By the end of 2014, 68.1% 
of  households  across  the  EU  Member  States  had  technical  access,  compared  to 
61.9% in 2013.  

• 

In  rural  areas,  access  to  fast  broadband  services  remains  the  major  priority  at 
European  level.  While  in  2014  at  least  one  broadband  access  mechanism  was 
available  to  nearly  98%  of  households  in  European  rural  areas,  high-speed 
broadband  services  are  still  accessible  only  to  a  small  percentage  of  rural 
households. Nevertheless, due to further investments in rural NGA deployments NGA 
coverage increased during 2014 by seven percentage points, reaching 25.1% of rural 
households (or 7.7 million rural households) by the end of the year. 

•  Satellite  remains  the  most  pervasive  technology  in  Europe  in  terms  of  overall 
coverage.  KA-band  satellites  cover  all  28  EU  countries  and  are  capable  of  offering 
broadband services of  at  least  2  Mbps.  However,  satellite coverage is  still  limited  in 
the Baltic countries, where satellite broadband reaches only certain parts of Estonia, 
Latvia and Lithuania 

• 

For fixed broadband coverage, DSL is still the most widespread technology, covering 
93.5% of EU households at the end of 2014. 

•  Cable  broadband  coverage  increased  to  43.5%  from  42.9%  in  2013,  while  WiMAX 
coverage  remained  broadly  unchanged  at  19.6%  compared  to  19.7%  in  2013.  This 

 
 
 
can however be attributed to the number of households growing at a faster rate than 
the absolute WiMAX coverage, which has increased by over 300,000 households.    

•  Developments in overall NGA coverage can primarily be attributed to developments in 
VDSL coverage, which increased by over seven percentage points throughout 2014, 
reaching  37.6%  of  households  by  the  end  of  the  year.  This  made  it  the  fastest 
growing fixed broadband technology for the third year in a row. 

• 

FTTP and DOCSIS 3.0 coverage also increased. The proportion of homes passed by 
FTTP  networks  increased  by  4.3  percentage  points  to  reach  18.7%,  while  DOCSIS 
3.0 coverage experienced slower growth with 42.7% of households covered in 2014 
compared to 41.6% the previous year. 98.2% of cable connections are now DOCSIS 
3.0 capable across the EU. 

•  With  regards  to  mobile  broadband  technologies,  HSPA  provided  nearly  universal 
coverage, reaching 97.3% of EU households compared to 97.1% in 2013. By the end 
of  2014,  LTE  has  been  commercially  launched  in  all  Member  States  except  for 
Cyprus, and overall LTE coverage has increased from 59.1% to 79.4%. This made it 
the fastest growing broadband access technology in terms of coverage. 

•  As  in the  previous  year,  rural  areas  remain a  challenge in  terms  of  coverage.  Fixed 
broadband  coverage  of  rural  households  lags  behind  national  coverage  (89.6% 
coverage at rural level, compared to 96.9% EU coverage). This pattern is even more 
apparent  for  NGA  technologies  (25.1%  coverage  at  rural  level  versus  68.1%  for  all 
EU households). 

•  Nevertheless,  progress  with  regards  to  ensuring  fixed  broadband  coverage  has 
continued  as  governments  and  operators  continue  efforts  to  close  the  urban-rural 
coverage  gap.  The  biggest  rural  coverage  improvements  have  been  reported  for 
VDSL, where coverage increased from 10.2% of rural households in 2013 to 15.1% in 
2014.  

 
 
 
•  HSPA reached almost 90% of rural households at the end of 2014, a 3.5 percentage 
point  increase  compared  to  2013.  As  the  roll-out  of  LTE  service  continued  across 
Europe, LTE coverage recorded continued growth in rural areas, growing from 14.8% 
coverage in 2013 to 27% in 2014. 

•  Out  of  the  31  study  countries,  nineteen  countries  had  fixed  broadband  coverage 
levels at or above the EU28 average of 96.9% at the end of 2014, 27 countries had 
fixed  broadband  covering  at  least  90%  of  their  households.  Fixed  broadband 
coverage was highest in Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands and the United 
Kingdom  and  lowest  in  Poland,  Slovakia,  Estonia  and  Romania,  where  it  reached 
between 85.4% and 89.4% of households. 

•  Malta  remains  the  only  country  to  report  complete  coverage  for  NGA  technologies, 
followed  by  Belgium,  Switzerland,  the  Netherlands,  Lithuania,  Luxembourg  and 
Denmark, all above 90%.  

•  Out  of the  31  study  countries,  24  countries performed  above the  European  average 
(68.1%)  with  regards  to  NGA  availability,  and  only  three  countries  reported  NGA 
coverage  below  50%  (France,  Greece  and  Italy).  Greece  faced  the  lowest  NGA 
coverage, with a total availability of 34% of households. 

 
 
 
•  With  regards  to  mobile broadband,  almost  all  of  the  countries  in  this  study  reported 
HSPA coverage levels above 95%, with only Ireland, Germany and Slovakia reporting 
lower HSPA coverage (at 94.6%, 92.5% and 91.1% respectively). 

• 

LTE  coverage  across  Europe  continued  its  rapid  growth  in  2014.  While  in  the 
previous year there were two countries (Bulgaria and Cyprus) without LTE availability, 
in  2014  only  Cyprus  reported  no  LTE  coverage.  The  EU28  coverage  grew  by  20.3 
percentage  points,  increasing  from  59.1%  to  79.4%.  Denmark,  Netherlands  and 
Sweden  were  the  leaders  in  terms  of  LTE  coverage  in  2014,  with  99%  or  more 
households covered.   

 
 
 
 
 
European Commission 

Broadband Coverage in Europe 2014 
Luxembourg, Publications Office of the European Union 

2015.4830 

ISBN: 978-92-79-50414-3 
DOI: 10.2759/504023 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
K
K
-
0
2
-
1
5
-
6
1
5
-
E
N
-
N

DOI: 10.2759/504023 ISBN: 978-92-79-50414-3