US happy with 4Mbps baseline; Europe demands 30Mbps for all

The grand master plan for European broadband is out, and one target leaves the United States in the digital dust—a goal of 30 Mbps "or above" for all Europeans by 2020. So says the European Commission's Digital Agenda for Europe, which also wants 50 percent of EU households subscribed to links of 100Mbps or more by that year.

"Today only 1 percent of Europeans have a fast fibre-based internet connection, compared to 12 percent of Japanese and 15 percent of South Koreans," the document laments. "Europe needs widely available and competitively priced fast and ultra fast internet access."

The European Commission is the policy arm of the European Union. Needless to say, Europe isn't jealously comparing itself to the United States, high-speed Internet-wise. Here our supposedly bold and fearless Federal Communications Commission thinks it's cool by setting a pokey universal broadband goal of 4Mbps, sans fiber, which the agency says costs too much.

Not the EC, which is wringing its hands over the lack of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) build-out in Europe. That's even less than the US's two percent, Digital Agenda ruefully notes.

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