The European Commission said that while the number and penetration of European broadband connections grew sharply last year, much remains to be done to achieve the access for all basic broadband objective by 2013 and access to fast and ultra fast broadband by 2020, as described in the Digital Agenda for Europe. In July, 29 percent of broadband connections in the EU carried speeds of at least 10 Mbps, from 15 percent the year before. Broadband penetration in the EU increased to 25.6 per 100 inhabitants in July, against 23.9 the year earlier. DSL remains the most commonly used technology in Europe with 100 million connections, but the market share is declining in favour of faster fibre connections and cable with Docsis 3.0. FTTH grew 40 percent to July from the year before, but still only represents 1.7 percent of the total connections in Europe. The Netherlands and Denmark remain the world leaders in broadband penetration, with nearly 40 lines per 100 inhabitants, or almost 80 percent of all households. Mobile broadband access, via, for example, dongles for laptops, is gaining more market share in some member States, namely in Finland (21.5 mobile broadband connections via usb keys/data cards/dongles per 100 inhabitants), Austria (16.7), Sweden (14 ), Denmark (13.4) and Portugal (12.1). Mmobile broadband penetration in Europe is currently at 6 percent, an rise of 45 percent since July 2009.
