UMIC introduces National Initiative for the Broadband

To massify the access to the broadband services by the citizens and companies is the main objective of the National Initiative for the Broadband, presented by the Government on 10 of July, in Lisbon. ''Broadband for everyone, at affordable prices'', has synthesized in an occasion, Mr. José Luís Arnaut, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister.

The document, elaborated by the Unidade de Missão Inovação e Conhecimento (UMIC) ? (Innovation and Knowledge Mission Unit) is part of the Action Plan for the Information Society, approved by the Council of Ministers on 26 of June.

The Initiative is articulated around five strategical principles, namely: 1 - Infrastructures and accesses; 2 - Contents and multimedia applications; 3 - To stimulate the use of the broadband; 4 - Info-exclusion; 5 - National competitiveness.

Through the Initiative for the Broadband, the Executive intends Portugal to gather conditions to integrate, within two years, the group of the more advanced European countries as regards the generalization of the services of the information society, fulfilling the designs of the Action Plan eEurope 2005 and of the so called Lisbon Strategy.

It is stressed the concept of the adopted broadband, which surpasses the dimensions relating to the technical condition of the transmission availability, considering the condition level of the access providing, the typology of supported services, the circumstances of geographical distribution and sophistication of their users, as well as the permanent technological evolution of the communication services.

In that sense, it is considered to be broadband all the accesses, independently of the technology that, with adequate performance, allow to stimulate the use of contents and interactive applications progressively more complex and attractive, adaptable to circumstances of their users either in time, mobility, level of sophistication and goal.

For 2003 it is suggested that the accesses ?always on?, are classified as broadband accesses allowing to support interactive bistream applications, which excludes, in the case of residential segment, the RDIS accesses. In the case of enterprise segment are adopted different intervals of reference for capacity transmission according to the dimension of the company - 128 Kbps and 256 Kbps in case of very small and small companies, up to 1 Mbps for large companies and 8 Mbps for network communications.

Until 2005, half of the families and half of the national companies with more than 9 workers must have access to broadband Internet; the totality of the main organizations of the public administration will be connected by broadband; the number of computers in the schools with access to the broadband Internet will have to be above of the European average; finally, there must be more than 16 public places, per 100 thousand inhabitants, with access to broadband Internet.

From a vast pack of presented measures, it is highlighted the consecration of the broadband in the new urbanizations (namely in regime ITED ? Infra-estructuras de Telecomunicações em Edifícios ? Telecommunications Infrastructures in Buildings), launching of the Prémio Cidade Banda Larga (Broadband City Prize) and the event Dia da Banda Larga (Broadband Day), due in October.

The UMIC has still announced that, until the end of July, it will attribute invitations for ?demonstrations of interest? with a view to the creation of Broadband Spaces, production of contents, creation of five company incubators for contents and applications and the creation of Broadband Community Networks.

The Initiative integrates an annex which contains a Joint Declaration UMIC/Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (ANACOM), establishing the terms of cooperation between the two entities on this matter, in particular concerning legislative and regulatory intervention. ANACOM will be part of the Action Group for the Broadband (G@BL), whose activity will start in September.

See: