Europe's Digital Agenda boss Nellie Kroes last week invited CEOs from communications equipment manufacturers, network operators and content providers to suggest new ways to finance her goals of all EU citizens having broadband access to 30Mbps, and half with 100Mbps by 2020.
Kroes wants to confirm concrete proposals at a CEO Summit in Brussels on 13 July 2011.
The industry group was led by Ben Verwaayen of Alcatel-Lucent, René Obermann of Deutsche Telekom and Jean-Bernard Lévy of Vivendi. Apple's Steve Jobs took part by video link.
The UK was represented by BT's Ian Livingston, the BBC's John Tate, the Financial Times's Stephane Richard, Andrew Cecil from LoveFilm, Paul Richmond from Virgin Media, and Vodafone's Vittorio Colao.
There were no representatives from small or community network operators, the business user community or residential or consumer groups, which are most likely to bear the final cost of the investment.
Participants in the CEO roundtable were:
| Alcatel Lucent | Ben Verwaayen |
| Apple | Steve Jobs |
| ARD | Oliver Werner * |
| BBC | John Tate * |
| Bertelsmann | Hartmut Ostrowski |
| BT | Ian Livingston |
| Cogent | Dave Schaeffer |
| DT | René Obermann |
| eBay | Richard Nash * |
| Ericsson | Hans Vestberg |
| Richard Allan * | |
| Fastweb | Stefano Parisi |
| FT | Stéphane Richard |
| Philipp Schindler * | |
| Iliad Group | Xavier Niel |
| KPN | Ad Scheepbouwer |
| Liberty Global | Manuel Kohnstamm * |
| Lovefilm | Andrew Cecil * |
| Mediaset | Fedele Confalonieri |
| Microsoft | Jean-Philipp Courtois * |
| Netia PL | Mirosław Godlewski |
| Netlog | Lorenz Bogaert |
| Nokia | Stephen Elop |
| Nokia-Siemens Networks | Stephen Crisp |
| Numericable | Pierre Danon |
| Research in Motion | Patrick Spence * |
| Skype | Stephen Collins * |
| SonyMusic | Thomas Hesse * |
| Tele2 | Mats Granryd |
| Telecom Italia | Franco Bernabè |
| Telefonica | Julio Linares * |
| TeliaSonera | Lars Nyberg |
| TF1 | Jean-Pierre Paoli * |
| Ubisoft | Stéphanie Perotti * |
| Virgin Media | Paul Richmond * |
| Vivendi | Jean-Bernard Lévy |
| Vodafone | Vittorio Colao |
| Voddler | Anders Sjöman * |
| Wind | Luigi Gubitosi |
Source: European Commission
* Senior executive
