The Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications (MTITC) has expressed support for the involvement of more settlements, regardless of their size, into the Wi-Fi free access initiative WiFi4EU. Thus, over 5000 Bulgarian towns and villages with no free access to a public Internet network, will be able to apply for funding to the European Commission.
The Wifi4EU initiative will provide free access to the global network of the residents and tourists of 8,000 local communities in the European Union by 2020. The first call for proposals is expected to be announced in 2018. The municipality leaderships should offer places to provide Wi-Fi - an administrative building, a municipal hospital, a library, a square or a park.
The initiative have been discussed during a number of meetings between the Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications Ivaylo Moskovski and the EU Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Maria Gabriel. During these talks they emphasized that it is extremely important to reach a balance of the geographical distribution of the European funding.
MTITC has actively participated in the preparations of an initiative for free internet access over the past year and has assisted in achieving a favorable allocation for Bulgaria. In 2017, in a series of information days, experts from the Ministry explained to the municipalities and interested operators the conditions of the application procedure, which are known at the moment.