A new round of funding has been made available for free Wifi hotspots in public spaces in Ireland.
The EU has made €120m available for local authorities as part of the Wifi4EU scheme. Local authorities can apply for vouchers worth €15,000 to provide free public wi-fi in town centres, parks, libraries and museums.
The call for applications opened on Wednesday and closes at 5pm on this Thursday, June 4. The call is open to municipalities or groups of municipalities in the EU.
“€120 million has been made available for up to 8,000 municipalities across the EU by 2020. I would encourage Local Authorities around Ireland to get on board with this initiative which means more people will have access to free wifi.
“This is another great initiative from the EU which aims to improve access to the internet for citizens,” Ireland South MEP Deirdre Clune said.
The application procedure is simple and fully online. Once registered in the dedicated WiFi4EU portal, municipalities will be able to apply online for the €15,000 WiFi4EU scheme voucher with just one click.
With the voucher, the municipality will be able to set up a Wi-Fi hotspot in public spaces, including town halls, public libraries, museums, public parks or squares.
Each EU Member State is being guaranteed to receive at least 15 vouchers.
WiFi4EU-funded networks will be free of charge, free of advertising and free of personal data harvesting.
Funding will be provided for networks that do not duplicate existing free private or public offers of a similar quality.
