A quick update on the digital life of Europeans

Written on 4th July 2008                                                                                                              0 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Every year, the European Commission carries out a study on the digital lives of the citizens in its 27 member countries: the E-Communications Household Survey. The research mainly concerns telecommunications – we’re giving up on landlines -, but also contains some interesting facts about the use of computers and Internet.

The survey of 27,000 households was carried out between November 9 and December 14, 2007. You can either download the report (2.8 MB) – which you don’t have the time for – or glance at this short fact sheet to see what your target group is up to.

• A majority of the European households – 53 percent – have access to a computer.
• Half of the European houses have access to the Internet. Although this is an increase of seven percent compared to last year, 51 percent still can’t check their email at home.
• Half of the people who don’t have Internet access just don’t really care about the web.
• Access via broadband has once again become more widespread, it increased with eight percent over the last year to 36 percent.
• 22 percent of the European households have a wireless Internet connection. An increase of eight percent.
• another 22 percent figure: this is the percentage of people who make VoIP calls. This is an increase of five percent and similar to the trend in the U.S.

We can be really satisfied with these numbers. Especially as a recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that of the fifteen countries with the highest number of broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, twelve are European. Like I stated before, Europe is broadband paradise.

broadband, broadband connections, Broadband Internet access, European Commission, european union, oecd, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, voip

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Message to start-ups: Europe is broadband paradise

Written on 22nd May 2008                                                                                                              5 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

As an European entrepreneur you might be delighted to find that you’re actually living on a continent with a rather impressive broadband penetration. A study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that of the fifteen countries with the highest number of broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, twelve are European.

Denmark is the leading country with 35.1 subscriptions, the Netherlands come in second with 34.8 and Iceland is third with 32.2. Remarkable but true, the United States is only number fifteen of the list with 23.3 subscriptions. The number of broadband connections has been growing 187 percent since 2004 in OECD countries to an average of 20 subscriptions. You can look up all the results in this spreadsheet.

Nate Anderson from Ars Technica draws an interesting conclusion from OECD’s broadband data. He’s clearly worried about the lack of a broadband plan in the U.S.. He then identifies that “Canada, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Iceland all have lower population densities and yet are managing to beat us in broadband penetration. Come to think of it, all five of them are also quite cold and dark for long periods of time.” So a good way to improve the broadband density in the U.S., says Anderson, “maybe is as simple as cooling the country and blotting out the sun.”

So while they’re thinking of drastic measures in the U.S., we can rely on the thought that most of our internet users have a fast connection. Always a good thing to know when building a web-based start-up.

ars technica, broadband, broadband connections, Europe, oecd, study

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