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The European Commission launched “Connected Communities’ initiative ‘“ an umbrella for several systems designed to connect towns, cities, local broadband partnerships and operators to the advice they need to access finance and develop tailored business models for bringing fast broadband to their community.
All parties working at a local, regional and national level are invited to submit their concepts and plans for broadband deployment projects to the European Commission. Requests must be received before 15 October 2014, and the best concepts will receive the Commission’s “seal of approval”, and access to more in-depth support.
Connected Communities is a European Commission initiative to support regions and cities in their broadband networks development. The aim is to identify and support a number of innovative pilot projects for deploying high speed broadband which can be replicated across the European Union. The initiative will map potential European broadband projects, and identify the most mature ones, which will be prioritized for “technical assistance” services under the Connected Europe Facility (CEF), in partnership between the European Commission and the World Bank. The initiative will also create a community of stakeholders which will work towards closing the high speed broadband gap.