In spite of the economic crisis, the broadband is going on spreading in Europe, and a few community countries are confirmed on top of world standings. The evidence came from a study published by the European Union commission today, according to which "the penetration of the broadband in Europe is continuously growing: it actually went from 18.2% in July 2007 to 21.7% in July 2008". Moreover, the gap between more and less advanced countries in this sector seems to be diminishing. "With an increase of 17 million fixed broadband lines within one year it is written in the research -, it is clear that high-speed Internet is more widespread". "The broadband growth continues to be sustained by the European Union countries, where it is more widespread. EU countries remain leaders under this point of view", declared Viviane Reding, telecommunication commissioner. Furthermore, Viviane Reding recalled that in the recent plan for economy recovery, "the European Union proposed to allocate another billion euros to the infrastructures for high-speed Internet services". In nine countries of the European Union (Denmark, Low Countries, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, United Kingdom and Sweden), the broadband is more widespread than in the United States.
