In a report, ‘Monitoring of the Government’s Broadband Strategy 2015’, the Swedish telecoms regulator PTS says that government broadband support has had positive effects on market interest in rural areas, stakeholders’ involvement, customer demand for fibre and on investment, as total fixed and mobile broadband infrastructure investment increased by 6% between 2013 and 2014, to SEK10.6 billion (USD318 million).
The PTS is monitoring the government’s broadband strategy targets, to compare actual infrastructure development with the objectives (e.g. 90% of all households and businesses should have access to broadband of at least 100Mbps by 2020; and all households and businesses should have good opportunities to use electronic public services with broadband access). In this year’s follow-up, the PTS conducted a case study of how the government broadband support affects market investments, and found that in addition to contributing to increased fibre network access in areas where such development was previously deemed commercially unviable, the broadband support appeared to also lead to higher investments in mobile broadband. The PTS has also analysed the European Commission goal of every household in Europe having access to broadband of at least 30Mbps by 2020, reiterating the previous year’s follow-up report which stated that conditions/indicators are positive that the target can be achieved.