On 5 December, Europe’s telecom ministers approved the European Commission's plans to offer WiFi in towns, cities and villages across Europe. The EC proposed the WiFi4EU project in September.

Wifi4EU was announced by President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, saying: “Everyone benefiting from connectivity means that it should not matter where you live or how much you earn. So we propose today to equip every European village and every city with free wireless internet access around the main centres of public life by 2020.”

"We are getting towards better internet connectivity in Europe. We also need to make frequencies available to deploy 5G, the next generation of communication networks on our continent as from 2018. Negotiations on spectrum coordination will start soon”, a press release quotes the European Commission quotes Vice-President in charge of the Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip, as saying.

The Wifi4U project will provide funding for public administrations that want to offer free Wifi Internet access where such services don’t already exist. The EC in September proposed to earmark EUR 120 million in funding, aiming to help at least 6000 to 8000 local communities by 2020.

More information:

EC press release on the support by the Telecom Council
EC press release on the Wifi4EU proposal announcement
WiFi4EU factsheet
Blog post by Vice-President Andrus Ansip in charge of the Digital Single Market