By Thomas Woldiderich, 1. April 2009
The Danish Energy Association wants a focused, ambitious and visionary strategy for high-speed broadband in Denmark. Therefore, the Danish Energy Association have developed a broadband vision which consists of an overall goal: 100 megabits for all year 2015 The Danish Energy Association sees three areas:
- Denmark as a front-runner in digital communications
- Effective and equal competition on broadband
- Elimination of the digital divide between rural and urban areas
To each area is assigned a number of concrete initiatives all of which should help to promote the dissemination of high-speed broadband in Denmark and help secure Denmark its share of the positive economic gains that comes with deployment and use of high-speed broadband.
Broadband brings growth and new jobs - and it must be used
A calculation published by the European Commission show that broadband is important for the economy. The EU estimates that by the year 2015 is a net gain of between 1-2 million new jobs is likely to be created as a result of broadband. In the same period a broadband-related growth of up to 6,000 billion Danish kroner can be expected at the European level.
A new Danish strategy for broadband (year 2009-2015) is needed
The Danish Energy Associations vision is proposed for the period 2009-2015 and is thought to replace the old broadband strategy from 2001.
The aim is to promote the deployment of high-speed broadband in Denmark where the government takes the lead as customer and consumer of digital solutions that uses high-speed connections. In addition the operator’s incentive to invest should be promoted.
With the vision The Danish Energy Association wants to encourage a Danish world-class infra-structure that will:
- contribute positively to growth and employment and underpin innovation and entrepreneurship
- make both the private and public sectors more efficient
- have an active role in bringing down CO2 emissions
- and give the general public, businesses and the public sector new digital opportunities for communication
Read the report "The Need for Speed developed by The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, USA, The Need for Speed
Documents
Hitting the wall
Even though continuous efforts are being made to wring ever more capacity out of the current infrastructure, the fact is that the capacity ceiling will soon be reached. In popular terms, we are heading full front into the Internet wall.
Digital content of HD quality, e.g. HDTV, social content services such as YouTube, online gaming, cloud computing, digital distance education (e-learning), remote monitoring, telemedicine, intelligent control of the home and telepresence etc. are making entirely new demands on broadband and bandwidth. The volume of content is now far higher than the infrastructure can bear.
The demand for high bandwidth is linked to the total volume of bandwidthrich content and services, many of which are in use simultaneously by different people in the same household.
On top of this is the creation of new, as yet unimaginable, services which depend on high band-width. This is a “chicken and egg” problem, where the expansion of infrastructure is driving the development of new digital opportunities and giving innovation wings.