European Commissioner Neelie Kroes has called on telecom operators to help lobby for the Connecting Europe Facility, a plan presented a year ago to offer EUR 1 billion in public loans to support faster broadband roll-out. Kroes made the call at the ETNO conference in Brussels, where she and EC President Jose Manuel Barroso are also meeting with CEOs of some of Europe's top operators, including Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, TeliaSonera, Orange, BT and Telecom Italia, as well as AT&T. Part of a total EUR 9.2 billion in proposed EU spending on digital public services and broadband, the CEF was first proposed in 2011 and still needs approval from the European Parliament and Council. The EC claims the total investment, including the CEF loans facilitated by the EIB, could stimulate up to EUR 50 billion in spending on next-generation networks and services, thanks to additional contributions from other governments and the private sector, bringing faster connections to around 45 million households. The aim is to have the funding in place by the end of next year. Kroes also underlined the investment certainty provided for operators in the EC's July recommendation, which largely maintains the existing wholesale access regulatory framework for next-generation networks.
