Norwegian Minister for Local Government and Regional Development Bjorn Arild Gram has proposed an extra NOK 100 million in funding for broadband in the supplementary 2022 national budget, which would bring the total to over NOK 300 million. The government is targeting universal high-speed internet access by 2025.
The Solberg government, in power until 14 October 2021, had proposed NOK 204.6 million for broadband in the 2022 budget, but the new Store government plans to raise this to NOK 304.6 million. In the first half of 2021, 86 percent of residential premises had access to gigabit broadband and 90.4 percent had access to service at a minimum of 100 Mbps, but in sparsely populated parts of Norway, broadband availability at such high speeds is to less than 70 percent.
The ministry said broadband subsidies are separate from the 5G funding of approximately NOK 500 million to be allocated for regional high-speed FWA that comes into effect in 2022.
