More than half of the European Union's 500 million citizens are regular Internet users and 80 percent have broadband connections, according to a European Commission report released Friday.
The number of regular Internet users grew by 40 million in 2007 alone, the report said.
The report also found that more than 96 percent of EU schools are now connected to the Internet, two thirds of them to broadband. Broadband connections were unavailable in schools in 2001.
Nearly half the doctors in the EU now use broadband connections to send or receive patient data and receive results from laboratories, a remarkable improvement over the years.
Of EU businesses, 77 percent had broadband connections in 2007, compared with 62 percent in 2005.
Further, 60 percent of EU's public services are currently available online.
However, gaps still remain between EU member states in terms of Internet use.
Overall, about 40 percent of EU citizens do not use the Internet at all. The figures range from 69 percent in Romania to 13 percent in Denmark and the Netherlands.
"Some parts of the EU are still lagging behind and are not fully connected," said Viviane Reding, EU commissioner for information, society and media.
"All EU countries must therefore work harder to close the gaps, to enhance cross-border communication services as well as services that also reach rural and remote regions," she said.
Research levels in the information and communication technology sector also vary greatly from country to country. While research levels in the Nordic countries are above those in the United States, it is below 1 percent in Slovakia, Latvia and Poland.
Source: Xinhua
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