Broadband subscribers in the EU are still only getting 75 percent of the advertised download speed, although broadband prices are continuing to drop across the continent. These are just two of the findings of three studies on broadband speed, price and coverage published by the European Commission. The first report on broadband speed in all EU countries plus Iceland and Norway contains figures updated to October 2014. It shows that, on average, broadband speeds in Europe are not delivering on their promises, with the 75 percent figure the same as that posted in 2013. Despite continuous investment in broadband networks, which raised the average actual download speed significantly from 30 Mbps in 2013 to 38 Mbps in 2014, the difference between advertised and real speed remains constant.
The study also shows that differences were smaller in cable (86.5 percent of advertised headline download speed) and FTTx (83 percent) than in DSL (63.3 percent). In addition, actual download speeds in Europe remain higher than in the US, with xDSL services averaging 8.27 Mbps in Europe and 7.67 Mbps in the US, while cable services averaged 66.57 Mbps in Europe compared to 25.48 Mbps in the US and FTTx services reached an average of 53.09 Mbps in the EU against 41.35 Mbps in the US.
The second study, on broadband retail prices up to February 2015, found that broadband prices in the EU28 fell by about 12 percent between 2012 and 2015, with 12-30 Mbps offering the best value for money. However, the report pointed out that prices vary significantly and could be up to 300 percent higher for a similar service depending on the location. In general, EU countries are less expensive than the US for broadband above 12 Mbps, but South Korea and Japan are cheaper than the EU28 for broadband above 30 Mbps.
The study on broadband coverage found that over 216 million EU households (99.4 percent of the total) had access to at least one fixed or a mobile broadband technology at the end of 2014 (excluding satellite). High-speed mobile 4G broadband penetration increased from 59.1 percent in 2013 to 79.4 percent in 2014. Next Generation Access (NGA) technologies (capable of delivering at least 30 Mbps) were available to 68.1 percent of homes, up from 61.9 percent a year ago.
