Govt aims for 75% coverage of 50Mbps broadband by 2014

The German government plans to provide three quarters of the country’s households with high speed broadband by 2014, local newspaper Handelsblatt reports. Under the ‘Deutschland Digital 2015’ IT strategy – the second phase of its ‘National Broadband Strategy’ published in February 2009 – at least 75% of households will be provided with broadband at speeds of up at least 50Mbps within four years, while the government estimates that around 30,000 new jobs in the IT and telecommunications industry will be created within the next five years. It also plans to set up a second High Tech Start-Up Fund next year, with the aim of funding technology-focused companies less than a year old. Meanwhile, the government has also revealed that almost all households in Germany will now have coverage of broadband at download speeds of at least 1Mbps by mid-2011 – a target that was originally set for end-2010.