Beyond coverage maps, now is the moment for Europe to think about the end-to-end connectivity that citizens and businesses actually need, and build a comprehensive strategy where fibre, mobile, satellite and Wi-Fi are interconnected layers of the same infrastructure.
On June 20, the global wireless community will mark World Wi-Fi Day, a day that recognises the technology quietly carrying most of the world’s internet traffic and providing critical, foundational connectivity for European businesses and consumers. In Brussels, it should also be a moment of reflection. As the European Commission prepares its review of the Digital Decade, policymakers face a fundamental question: are we building a connectivity Europeans rely on every day, or reserving resources for future use cases that may never materialise?
The Digital Decade targets focus on infrastructure deployment metrics such as gigabit households, 5G corridors and fibre rollout. These are important indicators of network deployments, but they are not measures of the connectivity users actually experience. A fibre connection may reach a building, and a mobile signal may cover a street, yet neither guarantees that the device in a person’s hand receives the performance needed to work, learn, create or innovate. Current European policy targets measure where networks are deployed but pay less attention to how connectivity is ultimately delivered to users and devices.
