Denmark and the daily broadband

Broadband is an essential part of the daily life in Denmark. We analyze it in collaboration with Maja Jensen. All information is being sent out via emails and Danish citizens use their social security number to log in on a webpage called Borger.dk (English: Citizen.dk) and registrar when they move apply for an education or economic support. Everybody receive and get access to their private documents via the internet. Everything is online, which makes it necessary for every citizen in Denmark to be able to access the Internet. A yearly report from Danmarks Statistik (English: Denmark’s Statistics) on the Danish population’s use of internet shows that 92% of the Danish population above the age of 16 had access to the Internet in 2015 and 87% of the population used the Internet every single day. 

The Internet Service Provider (ISP) companies in Denmark that provide internet are: TDC erhverv, Yousee, Telenor, Stofa, Telia, Waoo and 3. Many of these companies own sub companies which also provide people with broadband and mobile broadband. These companies offer four different kinds of broadband connections, which we will explain in detail later. Since almost everybody in Denmark needs and uses internet connection, the internet connections are often fast and reliable. For around 30-35 Euros a month, the costumer will be able to get a broadband connection with 20 Mbps, which will cover most people’s needs.

Broadband is often defined as internet with a speed higher than 2 Mbps. This definition makes all internet in Denmark broadband – also the internet we use on our phones. In Denmark we use four different types of broadband. xDSL, which is copper cables, cable internet via coaxial cable, fibernet and mobile broadband. To be able to have internet on your computer you need a router or a modem. With a router, you can have multiple computers online at the same time on the same internet connection. With a modem, you can only have one computer online at the time, unless you have extra equipment or IP-addresses (kobber) adslmodem. Most of the routers sold today are wireless. 

We have had an interview with Tom Jensen who works at Jysk IT which is a Danish IT company which helps businesses and farms with IT-solutions. He has provided us with all the pictures in this article and he has told me about broadband in Denmark and which forms of connection is the most popular and why (the quotes are translated from Danish): “Cable internet is not used as much in Denmark anymore, but used to be the most popular form of broadband connection. Now xDSL and fibernet is the most common way to get access to the internet and the use of fibernet is still growing.” 

Cable Internet, or coaxial cable Internet is, as Tom Jensen said, in the quote not as popular in Denmark anymore. One of the reasons for that is that the customer has to have cable television to get access to cable internet and since fewer and fewer Danes have cable television, fewer and fewer have cable internet. Yousee and Stofa is the most popular ISP with cable internet. 

xDSL is the most common way to get access to Internet in Denmark. Even though it is called xDSL in Denmark it is not the original technology that is being used, but newer generations of xDSL. TDC owns all cobber cables in Denmark, so smaller ISPs can rent some to sell to their customers. This means that the customers will not experience differences in the speed of the xDSL. This form of connection is often used in the outlying areas in Denmark. xDSL has more disadvantages than cable internet and fibernet. It is the slowest form of internet connection and often the companies do not know how fast the internet is for every costumer. To take care of this problem some ISPs started describing the internet speed as “up to” a certain rate of Mbps. For example a company would sell an xDSL connection to a customer with “up to” 20 Mbps. The problem with this was that the speed sometimes would be much lower than 20 Mbps. In March 2016 three of the companies who did this were told to change their marketing. In an article on The Local it is described how the three ISPs TDC, Telia and Telenor over-promised their costumers what they were able to provide them. Christina Toftegaard Nielsen which is the Danish Consumer Ombudsman said in the article that “Speed is a major factor for consumers when they choose broadband [providers]. Therefore it is important that the companies give correct information about it in their marketing.” 

Fibernet is the best way to get a fast broadband connection. The connection is made via fiber optic cables. Many big Danish companies support fibernet and the ISP and the use of fibernet is growing. The two most popular suppliers of fibernet is Waoo and Stofa. In Denmark, fibernet is often installed in whole areas at once, because it is necessary to do quite a lot of digging when installing the fibernet. Fibernet is very popular because of the high speed and the stability. Fibernet is faster than traditional broadband, because the use of fibernet secures less loss of data than with cobber cables. If you want 100 Mbps you should buy fibernet even though you sometimes can access these speeds with cable internet connections. 

Mobile broadband is the fourth way to get broadband in Denmark. Tom Jensen says: “Even though Denmark is a relatively small country, there are places on the countryside where it is very hard for people to have a connection with more than 5 Mbps. If they use a mobile broadband connection, they will be able to get more Mbps.” If you choose this solution, you buy a SIM card with data and put the SIM card in a special router or a USC-stick (as shown to the right). The signal to the mobile broadband comes from masts around the country, like the one shown in the picture below. 

We analyze international broadband evolution (in this case, in Denmark) in this blog, in Research Group about Digital Journalism and Marketing and Broadband and in Research Group on Innovative Monetization Systems of Digital Journalism, Marketing and Tourism (SIMPED), from CECABLE,  Escola Universitària Mediterrani of UdG, UPF and Blanquerna-URL, in Twitter (@CECABLEresearch), Google+, in the group of LinkedIn, in the page of LinkedIn, in the group of Facebook, in Instagram (CECABLE), in Pinterest and in this blog. We will go in deep in the XXII Cable and Broadband Catalonia Congress (4-5 April).