In two weeks’ time Viviane Reding, the information society commissioner, will announce plans to reform the European Union’s communications framework. The current framework, agreed in 2003, has been a success, providing a common basis to liberalise markets. Once branded a broadband laggard, the EU has made real progress in broadband take-up.

For this, we can thank increasingly open and competitive markets. Yet the rates of broadband take-up and speed in some Asian countries mean that Europe cannot be complacent. Ms Reding is rightly asking: where next? In our view there are five main challenges for the revised framework: