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www.southgatearc.org
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EU Commissioners Digital Europe SpeechThe EU Telecoms and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding was invited to give this year's 'Ludwig Erhard Lecture' and used it to set out her vision of the Digital future for the EU. Ludwig Erhard was a member of the Mount Perelin Society. He was West German minister for economic affairs from 1949 to 1963 and then Federal Chancellor until 1966. He is credited with rebuilding the German economy after years of centralised management. In a wide ranging speech she said that she would like to have internet broadband for all EU citizens by 2010 and high-speed internet broadband by 2013. She addressed the issue of file sharing asking "Have we considered all alternative options to repression?" a possible reference to recent events in Sweden and proposed changes in France. The commissioner called for encouragement of effective competition and sustainable investment in Next Generation Networks – in particular into fibre networks instead of copper ones saying "market-driven investment can be given extra impetus through co-investment schemes under which several operators deploy fibre-to the-home." Her commitment to Fibre (Fiber) To The Home (FTTH) is significant. Some trial schemes have been going ahead that use the inferior low-speed Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) system. FTTC involves running fibre to a street cabinet and then transmitting a broadband signal covering the HF radio spectrum along copper telephone lines to homes. FTTC could have a significant impact on radio reception. Her speech also called on EU Governments to "act swiftly now" and not leave the TV Digital switchover until 2012. She sees the mobile phone being used for payments instead of cash saying "Very quickly, we could see the mobile phone being used for buying most day-to-day items electronically, such as tickets in a station, sodas from a vending machine or flowers in a shop." Mobile phone payment systems like this are likely to operate on 13.560 MHz. An HF frequency rather than VHF/UHF may well have been chosen because there is no licence exempt spectrum available between 50 MHz and 2.4 GHz on a global basis. Additionally when the first mobile phone payment systems were being developed cheap modules were available from the game console industry operating on 13.560 MHz and in development stages designers tend were possible to make use of existing modules. Read the full speech 'Digital Europe – Europe's Fast Track to Economic Recovery' at also see 'How to transform the "digital dividend" into consumer benefits and up to €50 billion in economic growth for Europe?' at Ludwig Erhard - Ludwig von Mises Institute The Mount Perelin Society
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