The availability of high-speed broadband Internet and access to digital service infrastructures are the elementary units of a digital single market, allowing communication, services and business to grow -allowing areas such as e-commerce and e-government to exploit their full potential.

The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) supports trans-European networks and infrastructures in the sectors of transport, telecommunications and energy. In this context the European Commission has proposed for the first time a series of guidelines covering the objectives and priorities for broadband networks and digital service infrastructures in the field of telecommunications.

The Broadband component of the programme seeks to contribute to the achievement of the Digital Agenda targets of all European households having access to internet connections of 30 Megabits per Second by 2020, and of 50% of households subscribing to internet connections above 100 Megabits per Second by 2020.

In view of these targets, CEF aims at facilitating an efficient flow of private and public investments to stimulate the deployment and modernisation of broadband networks.

Across the whole multi-annual financial framework (2014-2020), 15% of the CEF budget shall be allocated to Broadband. At least one third of the broadband projects financially supported under CEF shall aim at speeds above 100Mbps.

Read the regulation establishing the Connecting Europe Facility.