Official figures from the European Commission suggest broadband speed has sharply risen in Europe in the space of 12 months.

In July 2010, 29% of broadband lines in Europe have speeds of at least 10Mbps, compared to only 15% of broadband lines in July 2009.

Despite the improvements, the EC warned that a lot of work still needs to be done to meet the 2020 targets.

The European Commission has set a target for every European citizen to have access to a speed of 30Mbps or more by the year 2020. Their figures showed the size of the task in hand with about 5% of all broadband lines capable of running at 30mbps.

Denmark and the Netherlands lead the way in Europe with high speed broadband links available in about 80% of households.