Elop and Jobs attend high-level EU broadband meeting

Digital Agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes has hosted a roundtable with chief executives from several major companies to discuss how best to encourage private investment in next-generation broadband networks.

The meeting in Brussels on 3 March was attended by Nokia's Stephen Elop, Ericsson's Hans Vestberg and Alcatel Lucent's Ben Verwaayen, while Apple's Steve Jobs joined the discussion via video link.

Other major firms, such as Google, RIM, Facebook and Microsoft, sent high-level representatives to the roundtable, as did media companies the BBC, LoveFilm and SonyMusic.

Discussions focused on the current situation of next-generation networks and how to generate and accelerate future deployments, as well as the sustainability of current networks and business models.

The meeting saw the formation of a group led by several members of the roundtable that will discuss ways to develop a complete approach to these issues for the next summit in Brussels on 13 July.

Kroes has set ambitious targets for broadband deployment in Europe of providing basic broadband coverage for all consumers and businesses in the EU by 2013, rising to 30Mbit/s or above by 2020.

The commissioner also wants half of European households to have connections of 100Mbit/s or higher by 2020, as the region seeks to keep pace with world leaders for broadband such as South Korea and Japan.

The meeting was similar one held by US president Barack Obama last month at which chief executives from tech firms including Yahoo, Google and Facebook discussed ways in which technology can stimulate the economy and provide jobs.

Kroes spoke at the CeBIT event in Hannover on Tuesday, warning that a tenth of projects in the Digital Agenda are delayed.