PTS’s measures for the Government’s Broadband Strategy for Sweden

18/10/2010

On 2 November 2009, the Government decided on a Broadband Strategy for Sweden. The overall objective of this strategy is for Sweden to have world-class broadband. This means that by 2020, ninety per cent of households and businesses in Sweden should have access to broadband at a rate of at least 100 Mbps, and that all households and business should have good opportunities to use electronic public services and other services via broadband. PTS shall, within the framework of its operation as well as through special Government assignments, work to ensure that the objectives of the strategy are achieved. This involves initiatives relating to promotion and advice, obligation decisions, private-public partnerships, monitoring and supervision.

Within the area of functional competition, PTS is working to create favourable conditions for investments through, among other things, obligation decisions and supervision of these obligations. This includes ensuring that it is possible for different operators to offer services via existing networks.

Public stakeholders – in particular municipal authorities – play an important role in the broadband market, as owners, users and those responsible for regulation. Within this area, PTS has among other things produced information directed at municipal managers and has implemented measures to make excavation work easier, such as the web service Ledningskollen.se.

When allocating frequencies in the 800 MHz band, PTS intends to combine one of the frequency blocks in the band with a coverage requirement with the aim of ensuring that all households and businesses in Sweden will be able to receive broadband. The work of PTS also involves investigating the possibilities of extending the use of spectrum.

In order to achieve operationally secure electronic communications, PTS is working with preventive measures and crisis management and also control and follow-up measures. This involves, among other things, advice when deploying broadband, the procurement of redundant lines and supervising operators.
PTS has been assigned to promote the rollout of and access to broadband in all parts of Sweden. This is being done among other things by ensuring access to telephony and access to the Internet, which are universal services, monitoring market trends and the objectives of the Broadband Strategy, promoting a regional growth strategy and facilitating the management of public support.

With a view to enabling the Government to monitor PTS’s work on measures for the Strategy, the Agency has been directed to report on its work in conjunction with the annual report for 2010 and also in two progress reports on 31 May and 15 October 2010. This report includes the second description of how the measures taken by PTS are progressing as a step in its work to contribute to the objectives of the Broadband Strategy.

The report in Swedish