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Every citizen in the European Union now has broadband Internet access at home, a goal the European Commission said it reached before its year-end deadline.
Pushing the needle all the way to 100 percent is satellite-based Internet access, which reached the 0.6 percent of homes that wired connections and mobile networks couldn’t reach, the EC announced Thursday. DSL, cable TV, and fiber-optic lines reach 96.1 percent, and mobile networks reach 99.4 percent.
“For those in the most isolated areas, satellite is a good option to stay connected, and it’s likely to remain so,” Neelie Kroes, the European Commission vice president in charge of the region’s digital agenda, said in a statement.
Basic satellite services can be found for about $13 a month, with faster 20Mbps service costing about $33 a month. A total of 148 satellites provide the actual service, the EC said.
The EC is also working on speeding up broadband. It has two goals: download rates of at least 30Mbps for all citizens by 2020, and download rates of at least 100Mbps at half of European homes.
