Fifty % of European Businesses uses Mobile Broadband in 2011

In the EU27, enterprises
1
 use the internet for a variety of purposes, among others, to present information on a
website, offer online shopping facilities to customers and interact with public authorities
2
. In the  EU27, 95% of
enterprises had access to the internet in January 2011. The share of enterprises having a fixed broadband
connection
3
 to access the internet grew slightly from 84% in 2010 to 87% in 2011. On the other hand, the use of
mobile broadband connections
3
 by enterprises in the EU27 increased significantly in the same period, from 27% to
47%.
In 2010, the majority of enterprises in the EU27 used the internet to interact with public authorities (e-government),
with 74% of enterprises obtaining information from public authorities' websites and 69% submitting completed
forms electronically
4
.
These data come from a report
5
 published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, and form
part of the results of a survey  conducted at the beginning of 2011 on  ICT (Information and Communication
Technologies) usage and e-commerce in enterprises in the EU27 Member States, Norway and Croatia, with a
special focus on internet use to interact with public authorities.
Largest shares of enterprises with mobile broadband connection to the internet in Finland,
Sweden and Austria
The level of internet access and fixed broadband internet connections among enterprises in January 2011 was high
in nearly all EU27 Member States. The share of enterprises having mobile broadband connections to the internet
grew in all Member States from 2010 to 2011, with the largest increases registered in Estonia (from 9% in 2010 to
48% in 2011),  Germany (from 22% to 57%),  Greece (from 6% to 38%) and  France (from 28% to 60%). The
highest shares of enterprises with mobile broadband access in 2011 were found in Finland (77%), Sweden (67%)
and Austria (65%), and the lowest in Romania (15%), Latvia (23%) and Poland (24%).
Obtaining information from public authorities' websites common among EU enterprises
More than 90% of all enterprises in  Slovakia (94%),  Lithuania and  Finland (both 92%) and  Sweden (91%)
reported that they used the internet to obtain information from public authorities' websites in 2010, while it was less
than half of enterprises in Romania (47%) and the Netherlands (48%). On the other hand, 97% of enterprises in
the Netherlands reported that they used the internet in 2010 to  submit completed forms electronically to public
authorities, followed by 93% in Lithuania and 87% in Greece, Poland and Finland. In Italy and Romania (both
39%) and  Cyprus (40%) it was less common for enterprises to use the internet for the purpose of submitting
completed forms electronically.