Photo by Omar Ashraf on Pexels

The Promise Stops at the Socket

Europe has spent billions — and drafted sweeping legislation — to deliver gigabit-capable broadband to its citizens. The European Union’s Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA), which entered into force in mid-2024, represents one of the most ambitious regulatory overhauls of the continent’s connectivity framework in over a decade. It mandates gigabit-ready physical infrastructure in all newly constructed buildings, streamlines permit processes, and attempts to collapse the bureaucratic timelines that have long delayed fibre rollout across member states.

But for the millions of Europeans who actually consume that bandwidth — streaming 4K video, running video calls from a home office, or gaming in a high-rise apartment — the GIA’s promise hits a hard wall at the wall socket. The fibre is there. The backhaul capacity exists. What remains stubbornly unresolved is the wireless spectrum that must carry those gigabits across the living room.

What the Gigabit Infrastructure Act Actually Does

The GIA replaces the earlier Broadband Cost Reduction Directive and is designed to accelerate the physical deployment of very high-capacity networks (VHCNs) across the EU. Key provisions include mandatory in-building physical infrastructure for new constructions and major renovations, a single information point for permit applications, and dispute resolution mechanisms to reduce delays when operators need access to passive infrastructure like ducts, cabinets, and building access points.

For property developers and network operators, the Act provides welcome clarity. Fibre must now reach the building’s internal distribution point — not just the street cabinet. In theory, this positions Europe well against its own 2030 connectivity target: gigabit access for all EU households and 5G coverage in all populated areas.

In practice, however, the GIA’s scope ends at the physical layer. It is silent on what happens once that fibre terminates indoors — and that silence carries a significant technical consequence.

The Wi-Fi Spectrum Gap: A Dense Problem

Modern Wi-Fi standards, particularly Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) and Wi-Fi 6E, are theoretically capable of delivering multi-gigabit throughput. Wi-Fi 6E unlocks the 6 GHz band — offering up to 1,200 MHz of additional clean spectrum, dramatically reduced interference, and channel widths of up to 160 MHz. Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be), now commercially available in consumer devices, promises theoretical peak rates exceeding 46 Gbps using multi-link operation and 320 MHz channels.

The problem is not the standard — it’s the spectrum access. Europe has been slower than the United States, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and South Korea in making the full upper 6 GHz band (6.425–7.125 GHz) available for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed technologies. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission opened the entire 6 GHz band (1,200 MHz) in 2020. Most EU member states have so far only authorised the lower portion of 6 GHz for indoor, low-power use.

This matters acutely in dense apartment buildings — precisely the environments the GIA targets. In a block of flats where dozens of routers compete for the same congested 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz channels, even a freshly installed gigabit fibre connection becomes throttled by spectrum scarcity and co-channel interference. The fibre delivers; the airwaves disappoint.

The Case for Full 6 GHz Harmonisation

Industry bodies including the Wi-Fi Alliance, the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance, and numerous national operators have been pressing the European Commission and national regulators to harmonise access to the full upper 6 GHz band. The arguments are well-established: more spectrum directly translates to more non-overlapping channels, lower latency, and higher per-device throughput — all critical in multi-tenant buildings.

The counter-arguments are real but increasingly contested. Incumbent users of the upper 6 GHz band in Europe include fixed satellite service (FSS) earth stations, fixed links, and certain government and defence applications. Coordinating coexistence — through automated frequency coordination (AFC) systems, similar to those deployed in the U.S. — is technically feasible but requires regulatory will and cross-border harmonisation that has proven elusive in the EU’s fragmented spectrum governance landscape.

AFC: The Technical Bridge That Awaits a Regulatory Green Light

Automated Frequency Coordination systems dynamically assign available frequencies to standard-power outdoor Wi-Fi devices, protecting incumbents through geolocation databases and real-time coordination. The U.S. has operational AFC systems already certified and deployed. In Europe, the Electronic Communications Committee (ECC) within CEPT has been studying AFC frameworks, but regulatory decisions at the national level remain pending in many member states. Without AFC, standard-power 6 GHz Wi-Fi — the kind that could meaningfully serve outdoor common areas and the exteriors of apartment complexes — remains off the table across much of Europe.

Operators Caught in the Middle

For fixed-line operators deploying FTTP (fibre to the premises) at scale under the GIA’s framework, the Wi-Fi gap creates a customer satisfaction problem that no amount of fibre can solve alone. Churn driven by poor in-home Wi-Fi experience is well-documented — and operators who install gigabit lines into buildings only to see residents report slow speeds on their devices face an awkward commercial reality. Many are responding by bundling managed Wi-Fi services, deploying mesh networking equipment, and offering Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 gateways — but these are partial mitigations, not structural fixes.

Industry Outlook: Legislation Without the Last Metre

Europe’s Gigabit Infrastructure Act is a meaningful step forward — an acknowledgment that passive infrastructure is the backbone of digital society, and that regulatory barriers to fibre deployment have real economic costs. But connectivity policy in the 2020s cannot treat the wired and wireless layers as separable problems. The last metre is wireless, and it runs on spectrum.

Until the EU moves decisively on full 6 GHz harmonisation — ideally through a binding decision that enables AFC-managed standard-power operation across member states — the gigabit promise will continue to stall in the corridors and living rooms of Europe’s apartment blocks. Gigabit to the building is progress. Gigabit to the device is the actual goal. The spectrum bridge between those two points still needs building.