Posted by Detlef Eckert,  European Commission, Director at DG Information Society and Media, Digital Agenda ambassador for Poland

According to official Polish statistics, the Polish society is quite polarised when it comes to using the internet – while 93% of Polish citizens between 18 and 24 years old take advantage of the potential of the internet, most of the elderly people do not use it at all.

After the first Going Local event to Poland this year, my feeling is that things are going to change for the better, as far as the e-inclusion and other aspects of the Digital Agenda are concerned.

During a 2-day visit to Warsaw, I had the opportunity to speak to a wide range of stakeholders who perceive the Digital Agenda as one of the key factors for the socio-economic development of Poland:

1. At the meeting with Minister Michal Boni, chief of strategic advisors to the Polish Prime Minister, I learnt about the plans to reform Polish educational system. The objective is to offer more e-skills to pupils and students and therefore, prepare them better to the demands of the labour market of the XXI century… (read more) Read the full entry

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— Posted by Marina Nedelcheva, DG INFSO: Internet, Network and Information security unit, Workshop organiser at the Digital Agenda Assembly 

ICT networks and services, and in particular the Internet, are a key driver for our economy and society. They bring immense economic opportunities and at the same time provide a vital public good. Given our growing dependence on the smooth functioning of these networks and services, ensuring their security and availability is of utmost importance for our society.

Enhancing the level of cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility and this poses certain governance challenges. States are ultimately responsible for defining policies for the protection of vital information infrastructures, such as the Internet, however, their implementation depends on the involvement of the private sector, which owns and manages a large number of these infrastructures. The level of security is also affected by the actions of individual end-users.

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— Posted by Guido Acchioni, DG INFSO, Policy officer, Workshop organiser at Digital Agenda Assembly

The Digital Agenda for Europe has set up ambitious targets on the deployment and use of high speed broadband infrastructure and services. It is obvious that these are ambitious objectives which will require a substantial amount of investment and efforts both from private and public domains.

The Commission’s estimate indicates that between € 38bn and € 58bn would be needed to achieve the 30 Mbps coverage for all by 2020 and between € 181bn and € 268bn to provide sufficient coverage so that 50% of households are on 100 Mbps services. The size of the investment represents a real challenge. This is because the benefits for society as a whole appear to be much greater than the private incentives to invest in faster networks.  Read the full entry

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— Posted by Robert Madelin, DG INFSO Director-General

I had a good discussion at the IIC Telecommunications & Media Forum, yesterday, the 13th of April. I was sharing with the participants my views of the Digital Single Market, one of the founding pillars of the Digital Agenda for Europe. My main points were that this is the key to European competitiveness especially during this historical economic downturn. Even in these times, the digital economy is growing faster than any other sector, and this should be the space where business innovators should find the ideal ground to develop their ideas and to create new wealth.

When Europeans think of the obstacles to the Digital Single Market they often think of the most obvious frustrations suffered by themselves as consumers, when they are denied to purchase goods in another Member States because their credit card is not accepted, or when they try to watch IP-TV abroad. Video on Demand (VOD) on the internet is simply not available in certain Member States and the offer is restricted in most of the others. Because of the lack of a Single Market in digital music, certain providers just decide not to offer their services in certain countries and thus de-facto to discriminate consumers because of their country of residence. This is something I and my colleagues are confronted to daily, through citizens messages and complaints. Read the full entry

Number of views: 2673