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The programme for free internet access in 4,000 locations in 302 Greek municipalities will start in November. The government has announced a competition for the project the budget of which is 25 million euro, i.e. 10 million euro higher compared to the initial plans.

In parallel, by year-end, there will be free internet access in 1,200-1,500 city buses and trolley buses as well as at the 64 stations of the underground and the electric train in Athens.

Initially there will be wireless access points in 15,000 places in 4,000 public places in different municipalities such as squares, pedestrian streets, playgrounds, public libraries, museums, archaeological sites, sports facilities, ports and others.

Later, the network will be extended to larger areas such as waiting rooms and places of large passenger flows, rooms for various events, places for tourism and others.

Citizens will be able to use the service until the end of this year or the beginning of 2015 at the latest. They will be able to connect to the internet for up to 30 minutes if they are at a distance of up to 20 metres from the wireless access point when it comes to indoor spaces and of up to 100 metres when they are in the open air.

Every access point will be able to serve between 40 and 50 users at a time. They will have easy access to the internet, but with restrictions in terms of inappropriate content, sending and receiving files, and the maximum speed limit will be 1 - 1.5 Mbps. Users will have access to information about the region and the city, as well as about the services provided by the local municipality.

Athens municipality and 22 other municipalities have not applied for participation in the specific programme of the Ministry of Transport, Networks and Infrastructure as they are implementing their own programmes for the establishment of local wireless internet access. The programme budget for Athens is 1 million euro and it is financed by EU funds.

It is expected that the new network in Athens will start operating in the autumn. It will cover 60% of the municipality and will include all the major squares and densely populated neighbourhoods. The network will be improved and provide a faster connection than the current Athens WiFi, which was available at Syntagma Square, as well as access to the services of the municipality.