WebProNews

EU Investing $25 Million In High-Speed Mobile Internet

The European Union said Tuesday it will invest $25 million into research that will underpin the next generation of 4G mobile networks. The EU says the funding will go towards research on Long Term Evolution (LTE) Advanced technology, that will offer mobile Internet speeds up to a hundred times faster than current 3G networks. The funding will be released on January 1, 2010.

EU Says Internet Can Boost Economy

More than half (56%) of Europeans are now regular Internet users compared to one third in 2004, according to a new report from the European Commission. Half of households and more than 80 percent of businesses now have a broadband connection. The most active Internet users are those between the ages of 16 to 24 with 73 percent of them regularly using advanced services to create and share online content, twice the EU population average (35%).

EU Frees New Spectrum For Faster Mobile Services

European lawmakers agreed today to allocate more radio spectrum to the mobile Internet to provide faster service and boost the roll out of wireless broadband.

EU Commissioner Pushes For Independent ICANN

In about five months' time, the current agreement between ICANN and the U.S. government will expire.  At that point, Viviane Reding, the European Union's Commissioner for Information Society and Media, is hoping ICANN will become a fully independent organization with a more international support network. 

EU Aims For Broadband Access For All Europeans

The European Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding said today that all people in the European Union should have broadband access."High-speed Internet is the passport to the Information Society and an essential condition for economic growth. This is why it is this Commission's policy to make broadband Internet for all Europeans happen by 2010", said EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding.

EU Wants To Limit Fees On Texting, Surfing

The European Union Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding has supported reducing the price of sending a mobile text message from one EU country to another by 16 cents.Reding's proposal is now being distributed to all other EU Commissioners before they formally implement it in early October. The EU's 27 member states and the European Parliament must also approve the measure.

EU Calls On Mobile Carriers To Reduce Fees

The European Commission has introduced a proposal to reduce the cost of mobile phone calls by lowering the fees carriers charge for using each others networks."Disparate termination rates across the EU and large gaps between fixed and mobile termination rates are serious barriers to achieving a Single European Telecoms market that benefits competition and consumers. The consumer pays the price for these gaps between national regulatory policies," said Viviane Reding, EU Telecoms Commissioner.

EU Pushes For IPv6 Adoption

The European Commission said today that it is setting a goal to get 25 percent of EU industry, public authorities and households to use IPv6 by 2010.

250 Million Europeans Are Online

More than half of Europeans are now regular Internet users, 80 percent of them have broadband connections and 60 percent of public services are online according to a new report from the European Commission.In 2007, the Internet attracted close to 40 million new regular users in the EU (now 250 million in total). More than 96 percent of European schools are now connected to the Internet, two thirds of which have broadband.

EU Sets Broadband Goal Of 30 Percent By 2010

In order to stimulate economic growth top regulators of the European Commission said they want to increase broadband coverage in the European Union from 20 percent to 30 percent by 2010.Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding said eight of the EU's 27 member states have surpassed the United States in broadband penetration, with Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden leading the way with penetration rates over 30 percent at the end of 2007.