Hopefully just the beginning Kaplan

The Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation has today sent out the proposal for the implementation of the former so-called Digging Directive, the Act on Measures for Cheaper Deployment of Broadband Networks, for reply to public consultation. Minister of IT Mehmet Kaplan is today the sender of the proposal, and says to DI that "everyone in Sweden should have a good connection" and that "we want to help the players to make broadband expansion cheaper". To me, it sounds very good that the responsible minister wants to make it easier for market players to build the digital infrastructure in a more cost-effective way so that the goal of 90% of Sweden's households and businesses having 100Mbit/s by 2020 can be achieved.

We at IT&Telekomföretagen have not yet analyzed the proposal in detail and will certainly have reason to return to the issue in our consultation response in June, but based on the insight that we and our member companies have had in the Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation's work on the implementation of this EU directive over the past year, we believe that the proposal may have some, albeit moderate, positive effects on broadband development in Sweden.

Hopefully, the new law will mean that, among other things, co-laying of fiber infrastructure takes place in a more structured way and that municipalities give all network builders equal conditions when expanding. However, we are already convinced that more initiatives than this are needed from the government to ensure that everyone in Sweden has a good connection.

So hopefully this is just the beginning of the IT Minister's drive for broadband for all!