Cable Europe’s Gregg Svingen talks to Neelie Kroes, Commissioner for Europe’s Digital Agenda in exclusive interview on cable, the net and girl power.
Entering Commissioner Kroes’ space at the European Commissions’ Headquarters in Brussels, it is hard not to notice an imposing brick sitting in the middle of her glass table.
A closer look reveals the word ‘Nee’, or Dutch for ‘No’. It’s a helpful reminder about this tech woman’s resolve in executing Europe’s Digital Agenda brick by brick (and a few clicks, too).
1. What are you doing to get more women involved in technology and more generally in business and policy making?
I am concerned that not enough women are engaged in this interesting and exciting sector. I am working with my colleagues in the European Parliament and interested Ministers to address this general skills shortage in the sector. In my view, the ICT sector must find a new gender balance if it wants to avoid underperformance. Our goal of “Every European digital” means getting European woman digital too. The issue is not new: over the years, my services have undertaken a number of activities in this area which have led me to the conclusion that we need to work together with business. We have developed a code of best practice which has over 60 signatories from multinationals, academia, SMEs and NGOs and has helped influence the way these companies attract, recruit, train and retain women in this sector. But we still need to do more to get girls into this field.
Over the years, the Commission has encouraged different stakeholders to get together and address the issues which have led to women not finding jobs in ICT attractive. The most recent discussions took place during a very successful workshop during the Digital Agenda Assembly held in Brussels in June, and I have also discussed further initiatives with leading members of the European parliament. Have a look at my blog posting.
One ‘take home’ message for me from all this work is that we must fight for women without ostracising men in this process. Men are as much part of the solution as women. What we need to do is work out in practical ways how to make computers and ICT more attractive for all.
2. What is your favourite personal technology or application?
The Internet. I use the Internet to get my news and to talk with citizens. I am in touch with so many more people because of the Internet – I couldn’t meet them or receive them all in person but now we can exchange our thoughts.
3. What are your views on the future of the IT industry and its role in creating growth for Europe?
With a growth rate of 12% the ICT industry is one of the fastest growing sectors of the EU economy. The wealth of this sector very much depends on its ability to invest for its long term future. Today, although Europe is not seen as a leader in developing ICT products, much of the underlying technology comes from Europe in the form of the design and development of the chips and applications that provide the building blocks of modern ICT, as well as leading on embedded systems in other technologies such as the automotive sector. Moreover, there is still a wide margin for growth in Europe in these fields.
4. The Digital Agenda promises a bright future for consumer connectivity. What is the biggest obstacle to your ambitious set of plans?
The Digital Agenda does indeed aim to bring a bright future for consumer connectivity: it aims at all Europeans having basic broadband by 2013, for everyone to have at least 30Mbps connections by 2020 and for half of European households to subscribe to bandwidth above 100Mbps by 2020. A bright future and ambitious targets. The greatest obstacle to achieve them is the high cost of ensuring that all Europeans have access to such connectivity.
The Commission estimates that achieving the 2020 target will require investment of up to €300 billion and this estimate is supported by the analysis of the European Investment Bank. Europe is facing difficult financial conditions as a consequence of recession and it will not be easy to mobilise such funds. However, we all agree that Europe must invest in world class infrastructure if we are to take advantage of the new opportunities that will arise as the world economies renew growth and the Digital Agenda sets out a clear strategy to encourage investment, promote competition and thereby achieve the targets.
5. Do you see technology policy as a good area for Transatlantic cooperation? Why or why not?
The answer is simply yes.
The word technology can be defined in various ways, but all of them are intrinsically international. The most recent Internet technology knows no borders and cannot be contained in a nation state. I believe the recent developments in Northern Africa provide ample proof of that. Also, in terms of the more traditional technology, information and communication goods and services travel much more rapidly than some other goods. Technological developments and businesses go global immediately.
While I do not underestimate the developments in many countries, not least China, India, South Korea and Japan, I do believe that both the USA and the European Union play a leading role. The USA is known for its various billion dollar companies having grown from garages. European companies have led the way in touch screen technology and mobile communications. The European Union also boasts enormous developments in areas like eHealth, eGovernment and other ICT applications used in our every day life.
Transatlantic cooperation is not only a desire, it is a reality. Apart from the regular meetings that are organised between the European Union and the USA there are a couple of specific elements of cooperation that I wish to highlight:
Firstly, I signed a Memorandum of Understanding with my American counterpart last year on cooperation in the area of eHealth.
Secondly, last April the USA and the EU jointly agreed a set of ICT Trade Principles that will be used towards third countries to encourage them to establish a genuine open and global market.
Thirdly, under the direction of our political leaders the EU-USA Summit instructed me and my colleagues to set up an ambitious plan to enhance cooperation in the area of cyber-security.
Fourthly, intensive discussions are ongoing between the USA and the EU on the various issues revolving around Cloud Computing.
These are examples of the ongoing work. I believe they speak for themselves. Technology is a good area for Transatlantic cooperation.
6. How can companies best support the Digital Agenda initiative?
The Commission has been calling on all stakeholders to engage in projects supporting the Digital Agenda. During the Digital Agenda Assembly, thousands of participants gathered to put their ideas together and identify concrete projects that contribute to the Digital Agenda objectives. Europe needs healthy companies willing and able to invest. Sufficient scale and specialisation, achieved through a further consolidation, are overall market trends that Europe should encourage, in full respect of competition rules. Pan-European companies should help market integration and the emergence of truly pan-European services, which are not sufficient today. It is exactly those companies that buck the trend of the economic downturn by investing in their future that will be better placed to reap the benefits. And companies also need to be aware of their social responsibility, precisely in order to avoid a need for heavy regulation of the internet that could blunt innovation. For example, they need to act on their special responsibility towards children online, and I am approaching leading companies with concrete ideas on how to achieve this.
7. What are you doing to boost investment in new networks?
I must emphasise that infrastructure investment will be led by the private sector and our most important action is to create the right conditions to encourage private initiatives. This is at the core of the regulatory framework for e-communications, revised by the Commission in 2009 and complemented by the 2010 Recommendation on regulated access to Next Generation Access Networks. This framework has proved successful in the past as demonstrated by the rapid growth of basic broadband which produced the world’s largest single broadband market in the EU. Now we must repeat it for Next Generation infrastructure but, as I noted in one of my earlier answers, the very high costs of doing this present an obstacle to achieving the Digital Agenda targets for superfast broadband networks.
Therefore, the Digital Agenda strategy will seek to encourage investment by cutting the costs of infrastructure investment. The Commission is also working with the European Investment Bank to develop innovative financial instruments to support broadband investment.
Lastly, I would say that boosting private investment will still leave some areas, particularly hard to reach rural communities, without adequate coverage and the Digital Agenda therefore also incorporates direct public support to connect them. State aid rules ensure that such public expenditure does not distort private investment and the Commission is currently having a public consultation to see if the State aid rules for broadband need to be revised in the light of rapid market developments.
8. How is cable doing as a Digital Agenda partner and what more can it do to bring its fibre rich offering to customers?
I appreciate the important ways in which cable in Europe can contribute to achieving the objectives of the Digital Agenda. Just over 50% of all EU households are currently within the physical reach of cable networks. This clearly could help reaching our target of 100 Mbps broadband connections for half of Europe’s citizens. On top of this, cable has an important role to play in at least two respects. First, it can widely offer 100 Mbps at attractive prices incurring lower costs, and as a result also lower risk which provides a clear competitive edge. Second, by competing head-on, in particular – but not only – with incumbent operators, cable increases the sense other next-generation network infrastructure, such as fibre. This is why I hope that efforts to upgrade cable networks to provide high-speed broadband keep on making rapid progress, also beyond the existing reach of cable networks. In addition, should cable companies with upgraded networks decide to engage in greater price leadership, adding stronger competitive pressure on traditional telecoms networks, we would obviously welcome that!
The number of devices is increasing. If you’re not watching a video clip on YouTube from your laptop, you might be checking the news on your handheld device or sending a tweet on your iPad – all with the TV on. We access content daily without thinking twice about the devices we’re using. Content passes through an increasing number of devices much more easily than in the past. Once a buzzword, convergence is something that consumers simply expect. It’s why cable providers are integrating their video services through broadband access, iPads and PCs.
Ziggo’s move is part of the inevitable trend of linking content to a growing number of consumer devices and leading rather than keeping up with user trends. Big ideas and equally big announcements always come with little details. And lawyers, too, for sure. Ziggo is ironing out negotiations in order to strike agreements with broadcasters to enable streaming of content to iPads, Android tablets and mobile phones.
Techtonic?? The majestic Alps are the results of the collision of tectonic plates, pushed with great pressure, landmass against landmass. Yet they climbed and climbed. You could say that the cable industry has had a similar but radically shorter history that has seen it exposed to enormous amounts of market stress in competing head to head with the once untouchable incumbents. So, it’s another reason that it made sense to meet on a Swiss plateau and take a good look at where cable is today.
