According to research done by the OECD the Netherlands is ranked with Switzerland in having the most broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants[1], has no bandwidth caps[2] and has the most homes passed in Europe in terms of connection speeds of 50 Mbps and higher[3].
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Cable is the most popular form of Internet access with 41% of total subscriptions, followed by various forms of DSL and Fiber to the Home according to statistics from the end of 2010 gathered by the association of Dutch cable providers[4].
Fiber-optic Internet access is rolled out on regional scale, encompassing part of a province[5] or a municipality. Deployment is comparable to local-loop unbundling: one party invests in the physical network on which other parties can provide their services[6][7]. At the end of 2010, fiber optic Internet was available in 205 out of 408 municipalities. The amount of homes passed was 714,600 on a total of 7.386 million[8][9].
Government-mandated Internet censorship is nonexistent due to the house of representatives speaking out against filtering on multiple occasions.
In June 2011 the lower house voted for network neutrality enforced by law[10]. The revised Telecommunicatiewet is expected to pass the senate later that year, after summer recess.
In accordance with European Union directive 2006/24/EC providers have to store information about internet traffic. While in the original implementation the duration was set to twelve months this has been changed to six months due to questionable usefulness and necessity[11][12].
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