The Next Web

A quick update on the digital life of Europeans

Written on July 4, 2008 – 11:32 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Every year, the European Commission carries out a study on the digital lives of the citizens in its 27 member countries: the E-Communications Household Survey. The research mainly concerns telecommunications - we’re giving up on landlines -, but also contains some interesting facts about the use of computers and Internet.

The survey of 27,000 households was carried out between November 9 and December 14, 2007. You can either download the report (2.8 MB) - which you don’t have the time for - or glance at this short fact sheet to see what your target group is up to.

• A majority of the European households - 53 percent - have access to a computer.
• Half of the European houses have access to the Internet. Although this is an increase of seven percent compared to last year, 51 percent still can’t check their email at home.
• Half of the people who don’t have Internet access just don’t really care about the web.
• Access via broadband has once again become more widespread, it increased with eight percent over the last year to 36 percent.
• 22 percent of the European households have a wireless Internet connection. An increase of eight percent.
• another 22 percent figure: this is the percentage of people who make VoIP calls. This is an increase of five percent and similar to the trend in the U.S.

We can be really satisfied with these numbers. Especially as a recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that of the fifteen countries with the highest number of broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, twelve are European. Like I stated before, Europe is broadband paradise.

I hope you like that post!

The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you're new here, you may want to read our 'About' page and subscribe to our RSS feed.

Do you have a start-up that we should write about? Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!

broadband, broadband connections, Broadband Internet access, European Commission, european union, oecd, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, voip