Broadband in Sweden 2004 - PTS-ER-2004:28
16/08/2004
The National Post and Telecom Agency has been assigned by the Government to monitor the development of accessibility to IT infrastructure with high transmission capacity, commonly known as 'broadband'. This encompasses networks based primarily on optical fibre cable, coaxial cable, radio link and copper cable (to the extent that this has been upgraded to ADSL or other DSL technology). The Riksdagen's (Swedish Parliament's) objective for accessibility is that households and businesses in all parts of Sweden should have access to IT infrastructure with high transmission capacity. This goal will be achieved in the first instance by development led by the market. In those areas where, based on the conditions of the market, it is considered that development will not come about, the municipality can receive State support for development of IT infrastructure.
The development of IT infrastructure with high transmission capacity is continuing. Networks based on fibre and radio have increased by approximately five per cent from January 2003 to January 2004 and amount to 185 000 km. Connection to both the national backbone network and interurban networks exist in all municipalities. Nearly 95 per cent of Sweden's urban areas have connection to an interurban network, which is an increase of one percentage unit since the preceding year. Just more than 65 per cent of the urban areas have an area network to some extent, which is an increase of 25 per cent since the preceding year. The number of households with the possibility of connecting to some form of broadband, so-called 'technically possible subscriptions', in January 2004, can be roughly estimated to be 1.4 million, corresponding to just under one third of the number of households in Sweden. In comparison with the preceding year, the number of technically possible subscriptions increased by approximately 20 per cent. During 2003, the number of private customers with connection to the Internet via some form of broadband increased by 30 per cent and, in December 2003, amounted to 868 000, which corresponds to approximately 20 per cent of the households in Sweden.
Access to broadband varies over the country. Since January 2004, all urban areas with over 6 000 inhabitants have area networks in some part of the urban area, while 45 per cent of the urban areas with 200 to 249 inhabitants have area networks. Northern central Sweden is the national area with the lowest share of urban areas with area networks. There, approximately half of the urban areas have area networks, in comparison to the national average of 65 per cent.
Development of the market is to a great extent controlled by demand, from households and businesses as well as from the public sector. However, it is not necessarily broadband itself that is in demand rather the services that can be delivered via broadband. Development is therefore dependant on the development of fairly priced services. Other factors that effect both accessibility to the existing IT infrastructure and development of the new IT infrastructure are pricing (for end users and operators), technical demands and other conditions. In summary, there are a number of factors that effect how quickly the development of broadband takes place and the accessibility to broadband, which are important