The European Union initiative encouraging the creation of free public wireless internet hotspots is beginning gradually to take shape. Member states have been able to sign up on the web portal WiFi4EU from 20 March and the first call for projects will be launched on 15 May, with vouchers distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.
The WiFi4EU initiative was proposed by the European Commission in September 2016. Inter-institutional agreement on the draft regulation was reached in May 2017 under the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the EU. A budget of €120 million will be made available from the EU budget (including from the Connecting Europe Facility) to encourage the setting up of WiFi hotspots in public spaces, such as libraries, museums, public parks and squares.
The high-speed broadband connectivity subscriptions should deliver a high-quality internet to users, with internet speed of at least 30Mbps, and must be subscribed to by the municipality for at least 3 years. WiFi4EU-funded networks will be free of advertising and free of personal data harvesting.
Arrangements. It is now time for implementation. At a press conference on 20 March, the European Commission announced that the WiFi4EWU portal is now online (and accessible in the 24 EU languages). It invites all eligible municipalities – the list of those eligible was previously agreed by the member states in cooperation with the Commission – to register their details ahead of the first call for projects.
This first call, to be launched in mid-May, will make available 1,000 vouchers, each worth €15,000. Four subsequent calls – each releasing a higher number of vouchers – will follow over the next two years, that is, until the end of the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework. The Commission states that geographical balance will be ensured as each member state will receive at least 15 vouchers and none will receive more than 8% of the total budget of the call for projects.
Each voucher will be allocated to an individual municipality as the beneficiary. Municipalities will only be able to receive one voucher during the entire duration of the initiative. Thus, municipalities that have been successful in being awarded a voucher may not take part in any subsequent calls, but those that have been unsuccessful in their application may re-apply if there is another call. Similarly, funding will only be provided to networks that do not duplicate existing free private or public offers with a similar quality in the same public space. The list of eligible municipalities is available at: http://bit.ly/2pr6jPL (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)