On September 10th, FOD/SPF Economy presented its annual Barometer of the Information Society.

Regarding infrastructure for fixed broadband internet connections, our country performs exceptionally well. The number of subscriptions with a minimum speed of 30 Mbps reached 66,2% this year (a lot higher than the European average of 21,2%) which makes Belgium the number one in Europe. Same goes for penetration levels: with 34,2 subscriptions for every 100 inhabitants, Belgium is in the European top tier, on a 5th place. However, the study shows that there should still be more investment in the amount of broadband connections running through fiber cables, which represents 0.1% of all subscriptions.

Mobile broadband internet is still on the rise: in January 2014 there were 45,7 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, which represents an increase of 40% compared to 2013. On the e-commerce markets, too, Belgium keeps growing: 48% of the Belgian citizens bought something online last year, which is a rise of 3%-point compared to 2013, but still lower than our neighbors in Germany, UK, France and the Netherlands (all over 50%). Regarding cyber criminality, 55% points of users say that they have antivirus software installed, whilst 53% said they changed their password in the last 12 months. The report concludes on this matter that this changing mentality will be generalized, as cybercriminal facts or fraudulent practices keep increasing.

The full Barometer of the Information Society can be found here (in Dutch) or here (in French).

This page is also available in: Dutch French