This report on the EU’s broadband market just landed in my inbox.

It’s by Ecta, a lobby group representing new telecoms companies that take on big, former state-run “incumbent” operators.

The study shows that EU broadband subscriptions have risen and are drawing level with the US and Japan. That said, the proportion of people signing up varies widely across member states and competition is weak in some countries.

One key point in the paper: in Britain, where regulators took radical action to split BT, the big telecoms group, the market is doing well and competition has increased.

Right now, there’s a big discussion in Brussels about whether other national watchdogs should have the right to break up incumbents (e.g. Deutsche Telekom) so that young operators are guaranteed to be able to sell broadband services on big competitors’ networks.

Here are some questions:

Broadband subscriptions are rising, so why suggest such radical action? Is Brussels looking for a problem to solve?

Does breaking up operators help or hinder network investment?

Or, is this increase in subscriptions irrelevant if Europe doesn’t find a way to guarantee spending on new, ultra-fast broadband networks?

September 5th, 2007 in Uncategorised | Permalink