Five countries have amended their rural development plans to take advantage of the extra funding for broadband. They are Austria (€15.0 million), Cyprus (€0.9 million), Finland (€24.6 million), Italy (Toscana and Sardegna regions, together €11.3 million), and the UK (Northern Ireland region, €1.4 million). Grand total: €53.2 million.

Meanwhile, the European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved two loans for the deployment of next-generation access networks using fibre-to-the-home in Portugal. Incumbent telecoms operator Portugal Telecom will receive €100m, and cable TV company ZON Multimedia will receive an identical amount of €100m.

In a statement, the EIB says that “by supporting both the incumbent operator and its chief competitor, the EIB not only contributes to a substantial upgrading of telecom services in the country, but introduces a healthy degree of competition in the Portuguese telecoms market.”