@ IPTV World Forum: Euro Broadband Getting Cheaper

European broadband prices fell by 29 percent on average last year, the European Commission said. Its research shows the 23 percent of Europeans now have broadband, the majority at speeds over 2Mbps – something media commissioner Viviane Reding attributes to “the right combination of competition between companies and regulation”. The commission says it will propose new legislation to promote 100 percent broadband coverage across Europe via both fixed line and mobile networks. Release.

The commission opted last year to force incumbent European telcos to spin off their infrastructure divisions, which must allow access to rival would-be broadband providers, just as BT (NYSE: BT) was in 2005 compelled to create Openreach to unbundle its lines. At the IPTV World Forum in London on Wednesday, Christophe Forax, an EC cabinet member working under Reding, said: “We pushed those companies to open up their networks in an attempt to boost IPTV in Europe.” Ofcom has now extended Openreach’s unbundling compulsion to fibre-to-the-home, making it more likely future HD TV services can be delivered competitively over rivals’ lines.

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