Research firm IHS Technology has stated that about 15.5 million new households gained access to long term evolution (LTE) services in the European Union (EU) in 2014. With this, the LTE coverage in EU increased to 79 per cent in 2014, compared to 59 per cent in 2013.

Further, the LTE coverage in rural areas increased to 27 per cent in 2014 from 15 per cent in 2013. Meanwhile, 3 million new households gained access to broadband, including both mobile and fixed line in 2014.

IHS has further added that out of 31 countries, 19 countries had fixed broadband coverage levels at or above the EU average of 97 per cent in 2014 while 27 countries had fixed broadband covering at least 90 per cent of their households. The fixed broadband coverage was highest in Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and lowest in Poland, Slovakia, Estonia and Romania.

Moreover, Malta had complete coverage for Next Generation Access (NGA) technologies, followed by Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Denmark. .