Neelie Kroes says EU must not favour fibre broadband

The EU cannot afford to back fibre optic broadband over other forms of connectivity, according to European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes.

In a policy statement, Ms Kroes stressed the importance of the administration maintaining "technology neutrality".

This is "just another way of saying that we cannot predict with any certainty what the best technological solutions will be, nor how they will compete and interact", she explained.

Ms Kroes claimed the problem of weak demand for super-fast broadband speeds in the short term could be addressed by utilising "incremental solutions", such as technologies that combine fibre optics and copper, and upgrading TV cables.

Approaches such as these can prove to be very cost effective in delivering significant increases to download capacity, the commissioner said.

Her comments come after global networking solutions provider Brocade argued that concentrating solely on fibre optic broadband networks will not be sufficient to boost connectivity in the UK.

Brocade's UK managing director Marcus Jewell said a shift in focus is needed from fibre to data centres.