TELECOMMUNICATIONS/INTERNET : DIGITAL AGENDA: RESULTS SLOW IN COMING.

The first results announced are a mixed bag. The European Commission issued, on 31 May, a report on the results of the implementation of its Digital Agenda, which aims to boost the sector in order to, in particular, offer all EU citizens access to basic high-speed (ADSL) broadband by 2013 and fast and ultra fast broadband by 2020.

Good news first: the proportion of regular internet users in the EU has increased to 65%. The target for 2015 is 75%. Currently, one third of EU citizens check their bank balances or read news online. The less well-educated and the elderly are also using the internet more - up from 42% to 48%. The 2015 goal is 60%. The proportion of non-users has dropped from 30% to 26% of the population. Statistics show that some 40% of EU citizens now shop online, which works out to 57% of all internet users. More than half of the population in eight EU countries buys online.

As for e-government services: 41% of citizens use them, half of whom have returned completed forms online. The EU hopes to reach its 2015 target of use of e-government services by 50% of citizens and 80% of businesses.

Progress is "mixed" in terms of deployment of high-speed broadband. Basic high-speed (ADSL) broadband is increasingly available even in remote areas.aHowever, deployment and uptake of very high-speed broadband is stalling: it is currently concentrated in only a few - mostly urban - areas. The ambitious objectives for 2020 - fast broadband coverage at 30 Megabits per second available to all EU citizens, with at least half of European households subscribing to broadband access at 100 Megabits per second -aare far from being met.

While the Commission has been closely monitoring the safeguarding of competition on the new market of super high-speed broadband, some countries are ahead of the game. Indeed, Germany and Sweden have already decided to transfer radio spectrum - freed up by the shift from analogue to digital television - to high-speed wireless broadband. Other countries are preparing to do this in 2011-2012 (Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the UK). The idea is for the 27 member states to have transferred this digital dividend' to wireless internet by 1 January 2013 - save in the case of derogationsagranted by the Commission until 2015, or potentially later in exceptional circumstances, such as where there is a risk of interference with non-EU countries that share borders with EU countries - in particular in the East.

E-COMMERCE

As for the poor results: cross-border e-commerce is "barely growing" (8.1-8.8% in 2010), says the Commission. This is quite a stretch from the 2015 target, which is 20% of citizens shopping online across borders. The Commission intends to address this and other barriers to the development of the digital single market in a forthcoming communication on the eCommerce Directive. Some 26% of SMEs purchase online, a rising share, but only 13% of them sell online (up two points on last year), says the Commission. The executive also aims to once again address roaming rates (calls made or received from one EU country to another. These rates fell by 1.5 in 2010, but roaming is still more than three times as expensive as domestic calls. The Commission's aim is for the difference between national and roaming charges within the EU to approach zero by 2015. Lastly, public investment in R&D in new technologies is lagging: expenditure did not exceed the 5.7 billion baseline of 2010. "A 6% annual growth will be needed to reach the target of doubling to 11 billion by 2020," warns the executive.

The report is available atawww.europolitics.info > Search = 295009