Revenues from broadband Internet access in Europe are expected to grow to €22.7 billion in 2008 from €3.3 billion this year as its use widens to 30 per cent of households from 8 per cent, a report published today said.
Some 45 million European households would have a broadband connection by 2008, according to the report, prepared by a group of 20 leading communications companies and presented at a European Union ministerial meeting in Dundalk.
The report, compiled with market research from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, said some €77 billion worth of business is transacted online within the EU, a figure expected to rise to €2.2 trillion by the end of 2006 - equivalent to 22 per cent of the bloc's total industrial trade.
It noted that although the use of wireless broadband to access information and applications from mobile devices was still in its infancy, total European mobile content and service revenues were projected to grow to €45.6 billion next year from €5.8 billion in 2002.
The report called on EU governments to speed up measures to make broadband access cheaper for consumers - connection currently costs around €150 per user - and to push ahead with combating unsolicited e-mail "spam" and making the Internet more secure.
The EU's Lisbon Strategy, agreed in 2000, aims to make the Internet the main medium for the transmission of information, communication, transaction and media in Europe by 2010.