YOUNITE Impact Programme
United Kingdom
YOUNITE is a volunteering initiative launched by Telia Company that enables and encourages its employees to engage in activities and …
Good practice
Imported
★ 72
★ 56
★ 76
★ 72
Development of wifi.brussels
Belgium · Brussels · Regional · See the Belgium profile
Wifi.brussels is a wifi network, accessible in certain location in the Brussels-Capital Region. The hotspots are installed on public spaces with a lot of passers-by, such as squares or in metro stations. Connecting is free and can be done from a smartphone, tablet or laptop. Curr
221 hotspots
Public wifi hotspots installed
145,000+ connections/day
Secure connections registered per day
Details
- Maturity
- Established
- Promoter
- CIRB — website
- Type
- Service
- Status
- Ongoing
- Target groups
- Unemployed and those facing social problems, Elderly people, Marginalised young people and children, Migrants, People with disabilities
- Period
- 2017-01-01
- Region (NUTS)
BE10- Keywords
- Internet, connectivity, digital, inclusion
Context
wifi.brussels is a free public wifi network in the Brussels-Capital Region, with hotspots installed in high-footfall public spaces such as squares and metro stations, live since 2017 and delivered by the public ICT bodies BRIC and IRISnet. According to 2019 research by IBSA (the Brussels institute for statistics and analysis), 2 in 10 Brussels families lack home broadband access; Eurostat research found 1 in 10 Brussels households without an internet connection, for reasons including cost and limited digital skills.
Objectives
To give Brussels residents who cannot afford or access a home internet connection — as well as tourists — a free alternative way to get online, as part of developing Brussels as a Smart Region.
Activities
Free public wifi hotspots installed in public spaces with high footfall (squares, metro stations); users connect for free from a smartphone, tablet or laptop.
Results
221 hotspots are currently available, with more than 145,000 secure connections registered each day.
Implementation
- Indicative cost
- Medium (€50k–€500k) — No budget figures are disclosed; cost_band inferred as medium given a region-wide public network of 221 physical hotspots operated by public ICT bodies.
- Time to results
- Long (> 3 years) — Live since 2017 (attributes.period.start) with current_status Ongoing and no end date — banded as long.
Conditions for success
- Delivered by regional public ICT infrastructure bodies BRIC and IRISnet
- Hotspots sited in high-footfall public locations (squares, metro stations) to maximise reach and use
Where it fits
- Governance type
- regional public authority (Brussels-Capital Region, via BRIC/IRISnet)
- Scale
- regional
Commonly funded by
National / regional programmes ERDF — European Regional Development Fund
Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.
Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.
Data sources
Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.
- MEDICI / Digital Inclusion Atlas — accessed 2026-06-14
- Practice website — accessed 2026-06-14
- Information source — accessed 2026-06-14
Attachments
Similar practices you may find useful
Biblionet
Romania
AIMS: Biblionet is a six-year national program which provided hardware, software and IT support for 2,280 public libraries. Biblionet established …
iDEA and Digital Stockport Partnership
United Kingdom
Stockport Council’s commitment is to improving residents’ digital skills – reducing digital exclusion and helping to plug the digital skills …
EstWin
Estonia
The “Estonian Wideband Infrastructure Network” (EstWin) project seeks to solve the rural connectivity challenge in an area under-served by telecom …