New regulation proposed by Europe's Digital Agenda Commissioner, designed to allow broadband to be delivered with fewer obstacles and at a cheaper rate.

The European Commission has estimated that by cutting red tape to broadband delivery projects, as much as €60 billion can be saved.

The main costs of broadband rollout projects relate to infrastructure construction projects, with 80 percent of costs stemming from civil engineering such as digging up land to insert fiber-optic cabling.

Digital Agenda Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, said: "The high cost of building new broadband infrastructure and relatively low density of demand in isolated and remote places, has sometimes deterred telecom companies from investing".

The European Commission have proposed that governments provide broadband suppliers with access to civil infrastructure, including conduits, ducts and manholes, in order to help reduce the costs of infrastructure deployments.

The proposed regulation would also see new buildings created with ducts in the architecture to facilitate broadband installation.

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