In October 2021, Vice-Premier and Minister of Telecommunications, Mrs Petra De Sutter, launched the national fixed and mobile broadband plan (the “broadband plan”).
The cornerstone of this plan is to eliminate the so-called “white areas”, i.e. areas where an ultrafast broadband network offering a minimum download speed of 100 Mbps is absent and where such a network will not be developed within the foreseeable future. To that end 40.7 million euro has been set aside, which will be granted to the operators in the form of subsidies in order to roll out very high capacity networks (“VHCNs”) in those areas. In order to be taken into consideration candidates have to participate in the competitive procedure organised by the FPS Economy (“call for projects”).
By way of the public consultation organised by the FPS Economy operators will have the opportunity to make comments on this future call.
The consultation can be accessed through this link.