More than three-quarters of EU homes have access to high-speed broadband services, while 4G LTE network coverage reached 96 percent of EU households, according to a study released by European Commission and conducted by IHS Markit.

12.8 million new EU households got access to high-speed broadband delivered via Next-Generation Access (NGA) networks between June 2016 and June 2015.

75.9 percent of EU households received access to high-speed broadband services (at least 30 Mbps download speeds) by mid-2016.

Very-high-speed-DSL (VDSL)-driven broadband coverage increased by 7.1 percentage points — reaching 48.2 percent of EU homes.

Only 39.2 percent rural households across the EU have access to high-speed broadband services.

LTE coverage in 11 European nations reached 99 percent of households and overall, LTE coverage reaches similar levels to those of 3G HSPA networks.

“Four years ago, 4G LTE services were available to only 59.1 percent of EU homes,” said Alzbeta Fellenbaum, principal analyst at IHS Markit and manager of the project.

Broadband network operators focus their deployment strategies on upgrading existing copper DSL networks instead of investing in the expensive deployments of fibre optic networks all the way to customers’ property.

VDSL coverage in Italy more than doubled, as coverage increased by 33.6 percentage points. Iceland, Germany, Hungary and Slovakia witnessed double-digit growth in VDSL coverage.

Fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) services in Portugal increased 10.7 percentage points. Portugal with 86.1 percent of home passed by FTTP networks has surpassed Latvia (85.2 percent) and Lithuania (81.4 percent) to rank first in terms of FTTP coverage among all study countries.

FTTP coverage was 0.6 percent in Greece, 0.4 percent in Belgium and 1.8 percent in the UK.

Rural NGA-driven broadband coverage increased by 9.5 percentage points. 2.9 million additional rural households gained access to next generation broadband services.