Broadband and the information society in Europe

The significance of broadband Internet for the future has also been grasped by other European nations, and their expansion and refinement of the suitable technologies is well underway. The findings of “Deutschland Online 3” indicate which broadband applications will act as the drivers of future growth in the broadband market (Table 3). The significance of Triple Play offerings is rated by over 80% of respondents as high (50%) to very high (around 36%). Experts in Europe also give a very high rating to broadband-based television products (around 77%), followed by Internet and video telephony (approx. 64%), online music sales (around 59%), Video on Demand (50%) and online gaming products (some 41%).

It is interesting to compare the difference between these foreign ratings and the opinions of German experts (cf. Section 2.2). The factor rated by some 86% of the experts from other countries as the most significant application, Triple Play, is given a high to very high rating by comparatively fewer German respondents (around 66%). Some 78% of the experts in Germany, on the other hand, see Voice over IP offerings as the most significant source of growth. But in the eyes of 64% of foreign respondents, Internet telephony only makes it to third place. Yet broadband-based television, which is viewed by other European countries as highly significant, is only rated highly by 57% of respondents in Germany — enough for 5th place among the key drivers. The relatively high proportion of free-to-air television in Germany by international standards is undoubtedly a factor in these scores.

Table 3:		Applications driving the future penetration of broadband Internet access (European experts)

The experts consulted from other European countries seem less convinced than their German counterparts about the integration of stationary and mobile broadband Internet usage. Though more than three quarters of the experts from other countries, as in Germany, are of the view that the integration of mobile and stationary broadband access will make anywhere/anytime access to broadband Internet possible by 2015, relatively few experts (around 36%), expect the integration of different broadband technologies to be so far advanced by 2015 that users will be unaware of switching between networks.

By contrast, it is worth recalling that in Germany almost 68% anticipate switching to be “automatic”. Another difference is that only around 32% of non-German respondents strongly agree with the notion that in the year 2015 mobile and stationary broadband Internet will be accessed via a single integrated end device (German respondents: around 52 %). Widespread discussion about the move towards an information society is also prominent in these other European countries. With regard to the necessity for a high level of corporate competence in the use of broadband media, respondents from all countries are of one mind. All the experts consider this factor to be of high (some 23%) to very high (around 77%) significance in determining business success. In addition, over 90% of the experts agree to a high (around 41%) or very high (50%) degree that superior broadband infrastructure will be crucial to global competitiveness in the year 2015.

However the experts also view a high-performance broadband infrastructure to be of vital significance, not only for the individual countries concerned, but also for the European Union as an integrated economic zone. Around 91% of them anticipate that this will be a key factor by the year 2015 in the success of Europe as a competitive force in the global marketplace (Figure 42).

Figure 42:		Rate of agreement with statements on the development of the information society in Europe (European experts)

Around 67% of respondents also presume that broadband Internet will be taken for granted in Europe as an everyday tool by 2015. A good 45% even consider it possible that, with the help of broadband Internet, the whole of Europe will develop into an information society over that period.

Three factors are seen as the main drivers of the information society in Europe. Uptake by other groups of the population, or so-called “offliners”, of modern information and communications technology is viewed by some 68% of foreign respondents as important (around 46%) to very important (around 22%). Equally important according to these experts is the increasing significance of information as an economic commodity, with around 50% rating this factor as highly significant and around 9% as very high. Just under 60% consider public confidence in the security of information and communications technologies as a further key driver of the information society in Europe (Figure 43).

Figure 43:		Key factors influencing the development of the information society in Europe (European experts)