According to the European Commission 215 Bulgarian municipalities (81% of all 265 local administrations) have successfully applied for the free public wireless internet access initiative - WiFi4EU. Only 16 of the pre-registered 231 Bulgarian municipalities failed because of technical reasons.
Due to the termination of the first WiFi4EU competition in May, now the budget is doubled – 42 million euros. In December 2018, the European Commission will announce the winners among the municipalities and present the vouchers.
The municipalities that failed this time will have the opportunity to apply for the next 3 competitions for the remaining two years of the initiative. The program‘s budget by 2020 is 120 million euros.
A total of 13 198 municipalities from the European Union entered the competition from 7 to 9 November 2018, as 4 000 applied within the first 10 seconds after launching the competition. The Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications contributed to the significant number of successful applications from Bulgaria through its information campaigns and the explanatory and technological support provided.