THE EUROPEAN BROADBAND PORTAL

The European Broadband Portal (EBP) is a follow up action of the European Commission resulting from the Bridging the Broadband Gap Conference (14-15 May 2007, Brussels) which concluded that there was a need to support public authorities in areas under-served by broadband to improve supply and conditions of supply.

The development of the EBP has been initiated by the European Commission (DG Information Society & Media) following an open Call for Tender for the supply of a "Web Portal for Exchange of Good Practice for Broadband Deployment". The project commenced in January 2008 and will last for a period of 30 months.

The project seeks to create a coherent on-line community of relevant stakeholders, providing them with the tools for effective sharing of experiences and good practices and a participatory environment for seeking common and shared solutions.

The European Broadband Portal aims to:

• stimulate the exchange of best practices and the sharing of experiences;
• facilitate demand aggregation and joint procurement;
• act as a central information platform, publishing calls for tender and other notices;
• become in this way a virtual meeting point between suppliers and local governments;
• permit sparsely populated areas to coordinate their demands for broadband, establishing a critical mass for technological solutions, such as satellite, that provide large coverage.

The Portal provides its users with access to:

• Secure registration and login profile;
• News features updates daily and a monthly newsletter; Calendar and schedule of events;
• User noticeboard, Wiki, and user surveys;
• Chat forums and on-line thematic discussion groups;
• Access (for upload and retrieval) to searchable databases of
• broadband projects,
• broadband strategies & action plans,
• calls for tender and pre-notifications,
• industry suppliers,
• EU policy & regulation.
• Assessment, analyses and reviews of good practice broadband projects;
• Syntheses of good practice broadband projects and strategies;
• Guides to Good Practice on broadband deployment in under-served areas (To-Do Check List for public authorities);
• Animation of on-line discussions and related fora;
• User participation in portal design, development and maintenance, through these groups:
• Editorial Board
• Expert Advisory Group
• Industry Liaison Committee
• National Contact Points