European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, ­Neelie Kroes, has issued an urgent call to twenty one EU countries to introduce all the legislative measures necessary to allow the pan-EU deployment of mobile satellite services . These services could be for high-speed internet, mobile television and radio or emergency communications to EU consumers and businesses.

According to the timetable agreed by a Decision of the European Parliament and the EU’s Council of Ministers in 2008, Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) should be deployed in all EU Member States by May 2011 at the latest. But, more than twenty months after the Commission selected two operators to provide such pan-European services, 21 Member States have not yet adopted all the national rules needed to facilitate MSS deployment.

Vice-President Kroes recently requested two operators to step up their efforts. The key role that wireless broadband (both satellite and terrestrial) can play to ensure broadband coverage, including in remote and rural areas, is underlined in the Digital Agenda for Europe.