KPN CEO: Governments need to create climate of “predictability and certainty” for operator investment

Partnership will be essential to the future of European broadband, according to the CEO of Dutch incumbent operator KPN. Eelco Blok, speaking during the keynote session at Broadband World Forum yesterday morning, called on companies and governments to “reinvent themselves” to take advantage of broadband communications as a “platform for change”.

The benefits that broadband can offer to vertical sectors such as health, education and public services, should attract players in those spaces into the development of the technology itself, Blok said. Currently many vertical sectors are too “inward-looking”, he said, adding: “The 1Gbit broadband era needs partnership with verticals.”

Operators’ biggest problem in the current climate is one of funding and Blok called on governments and regulators to provide “predictability and certainty” in order to encourage further investment. It was a theme that was picked up in the following presentation by Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda.

So too was Blok’s warning that Europe risks being left behind in terms of fixed broadband deployment, with markets like the US and China surging forward. This has already happened with mobile, he said, with European operators suffering from a lack of scale. With somewhere in the region of 150 operators serving the European market, scale is hard to come by, he said. It is for this reason, he suggested, that “only a few European LTE rollouts are meaningful” so far.

He declined to comment on KPN’s approach to the kind of consolidation that would be necessary to bring the number of operators down in a bid to generate the kind of scale the sector needs, however.

KPN is among the leaders in European broadband, Blok said, offering a 500Gbit/s connection for €100/month, adding that the firm had a 46 per cent share of the Dutch market in regions where it has deployed fibre.

KPN CEO: Governments need to create climate of “predictability and certainty” for operator investment

Partnership will be essential to the future of European broadband, according to the CEO of Dutch incumbent operator KPN. Eelco Blok, speaking during the keynote session at Broadband World Forum yesterday morning, called on companies and governments to “reinvent themselves” to take advantage of broadband communications as a “platform for change”.

The benefits that broadband can offer to vertical sectors such as health, education and public services, should attract players in those spaces into the development of the technology itself, Blok said. Currently many vertical sectors are too “inward-looking”, he said, adding: “The 1Gbit broadband era needs partnership with verticals.”

Operators’ biggest problem in the current climate is one of funding and Blok called on governments and regulators to provide “predictability and certainty” in order to encourage further investment. It was a theme that was picked up in the following presentation by Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda.

So too was Blok’s warning that Europe risks being left behind in terms of fixed broadband deployment, with markets like the US and China surging forward. This has already happened with mobile, he said, with European operators suffering from a lack of scale. With som

Partnership will be essential to the future of European broadband, according to the CEO of Dutch incumbent operator KPN. Eelco Blok, speaking during the keynote session at Broadband World Forum yesterday morning, called on companies and governments to “reinvent themselves” to take advantage of broadband communications as a “platform for change”.

The benefits that broadband can offer to vertical sectors such as health, education and public services, should attract players in those spaces into the development of the technology itself, Blok said. Currently many vertical sectors are too “inward-looking”, he said, adding: “The 1Gbit broadband era needs partnership with verticals.”

Operators’ biggest problem in the current climate is one of funding and Blok called on governments and regulators to provide “predictability and certainty” in order to encourage further investment. It was a theme that was picked up in the following presentation by Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda.

So too was Blok’s warning that Europe risks being left behind in terms of fixed broadband deployment, with markets like the US and China surging forward. This has already happened with mobile, he said, with European operators suffering from a lack of scale. With somewhere in the region of 150 operators serving the European market, scale is hard to come by, he said. It is for this reason, he suggested, that “only a few European LTE rollouts are meaningful” so far.

He declined to comment on KPN’s approach to the kind of consolidation that would be necessary to bring the number of operators down in a bid to generate the kind of scale the sector needs, however.

KPN is among the leaders in European broadband, Blok said, offering a 500Gbit/s connection for €100/month. The firm had a 46 per cent share of the Dutch market in regions where it has deployed fibre, he added.

ewhere in the region of 150 operators serving the European market, scale is hard to come by, he said. It is for this reason, he suggested, that “only a few European LTE rollouts are meaningful” so far.

He declined to comment on KPN’s approach to the kind of consolidation that would be necessary to bring the number of operators down in a bid to generate the kind of scale the sector needs, however.

KPN is among the leaders in European broadband, Blok said, offering a 500Gbit/s connection for €100/month. The firm had a 46 per cent share of the Dutch market in regions where it has deployed fiber, he said.