# Analysis of Digital Skills and Infrastructure in EU Countries Based on DESI 2024 Data
## 4 Results and Discussion
### Digital Infrastructure  
The following indicators are currently used to characterize digital infrastructure in DESI 2024:  
* Overall internet take-up;
* Share of fixed broadband subscriptions \(\geq\) 100 Mbps;
* Share of fixed broadband subscriptions \(\geq\) 1 Gbps;
* Fixed Very-High-Capacity Network (VHCN) coverage;
* FTTP coverage;
* Mobile broadband take-up;
* Overall 5G coverage;
* 5G coverage in the 3.4-3.8 GHz band;
* 5G spectrum;
* 5G Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards share of population;
* Edge nodes. Note that this list is expanded compared to last year's version of DESI 2023. By definition, the indicator \"Overall internet take-up\" counts the percentage of households that have access to the internet at home. As can be seen in Figure 9, the EU has quite good and uniformly distributed coverage of internet access at home across the different countries. The average for the EU is 93.09%, with the maximum being 99.06% for Luxembourg and the minimum being 86.9% for Greece having access to the internet at home. Fixed internet usage in the EU is shown in Figures 10-12. Figure 10 shows the use of a share of fixed broadband subscriptions \(\geq\) 10 Mbps. Data on using the \"Share of fixed broadband subscriptions \(\geq\) 1 Gbps\" indicator is shown in Figure 11.  
Analysis of the data in Figures 10 and 11 shows that currently in the EU, fixed gigabit connections are used nearly 3.5 times less than fixed 100 Mbps connections. The average value for fixed 100 Mbps connections is 65.9%, while for fixed gigabit connections, it is only 18.5%. Figure 11: Data on using the “Share of fixed broadband subscriptions \(\geq 1\) Gbps” indicator. Figure 10: Data on using the “Share of fixed broadband subscriptions \(\geq 100\) Mbps.” indicator. Figure 9: Data on using the “Overall internet take-up” indicator. For the analysis of fixed communication systems, DESI provides two more indicators: VHCN coverage (Figure 12) and Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) coverage (Figure 13). By definition, the first (Figure 12) is the percentage of households covered by any fixed VHCN, that is, an all-optical-fiber network, and the second (Figure 13) is the percentage of households covered by Fiber to the Home and Fiber to the Building. The average value for VHCN coverage is 78.81%, with the maximum of 100% for Malta and the minimum of 38.41% for Greece. The average value for FTTP coverage, today's most promising fixed-line technology, is 63.99%. Figure 12: Data on using the “Fixed Very High Capacity Network coverage” indicator. Figure 13: Data on using the “FTTP coverage” indicator. The following indicators characterize the state of mobile communication use in the EU. The first indicator is mobile broadband take-up (Figure 14); the DESI indicator counts individuals who use the internet on a mobile device. The figure shows high levels of mobile device usage in most countries, ranging from 80 to 99%, with an average of almost 90%. The first indicator for characterizing the use of mobile communications in the EU is the 5G coverage indicator. By definition, it is the percentage of households with coverage by at least one 5G mobile network (Figure 15). In five countries, we see 100% use of 5G technology, with six more in the range above 98%; the average value for the EU is also high (89.3%), but there are a few countries with low use, with the minimum value of 32.75% in Romania. It should be noted that the EU is actively working to expand 5G coverage on its territory; over the past year, it has increased by 10%. To obtain an idea of using 5G in the world as a whole, you can look at Figure 16 [25],  
Figure 14: Data on using the “Mobile broadband take-up” indicator. Figure 15: Data on using the “Overall 5G coverage” indicator. where 5G coverage areas are shown in purple. The figure illustrates that the EU is one of the world leaders in using 5G technology. Different 5G services and use cases use different frequency bands.