 | This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: Most ISPs listed don't exist anymore, and most stats are outdated..(May 2022) |
Communications in Belgium are extensive and advanced. [1] Belgium possesses the infrastructure for both mobile and land-based telecom, as well as having significant television, radio and internet infrastructure. The country code for Belgium is BE.
Mail regulation is a national competency. Postal service in Belgium is in many cases performed by Belgian Post Group, a semi-private public company. Competitors include DHL and UPS.
Postal codes in Belgium consist of four digits which indicate regional areas, e.g. "9000" is the postal code for Ghent.
The telephone system itself is highly developed and technologically advanced, with full automation in facilities that handle domestic and international telecom. Domestically speaking, the county has a nationwide cellular telephone system and an extensive network of telephone cables. Telephone regulation is a national competency.
The country code for Belgium is 32 and the international call prefix is 00.
A telephone number in Belgium is a sequence of nine or ten numbers dialled on a telephone to make a call on the telephone network in Belgium. Belgium is under a closed telephone numbering plan, but retains the trunk code, "0", for all national dialling.
There were 4.668 million land telephone lines in use in Belgium in 2007, a slight decrease on the 4.769 million in use in 1997.
The majority state-owned public telephone company of Belgium is Proximus. Some other or private operators exist, as Scarlet (Proximus) and Base (Telenet).
Mobile telephone ownership has increased by nearly one thousand percent in the period 1997–2007, from 974,494 to 10.23 million.
There are three licensed mobile network operators (MNO) in Belgium, Proximus (Belgacom), Orange Belgium (Orange S.A.) and Telenet/Base and numerous mobile virtual network operators (MVNO).
A fourth license will be auctioned off by the government in January 2010.
There were 61 (2003) internet service providers in Belgium, serving 8.113 million internet users in 2009. The country code for Belgian websites is .be.
In September 2009 in Flanders there were 3,048,260 broadband internet customers (DSL and cable), of which 2,520,481 were residential users and 527,779 business users. Only 65,175 dial-up internet access accounts remained in the residential market and 9,580 in the business market.
Belgium has numerous copper cable internet providers:
Only Belgacom and Numericable currently offers fixed telephony and digital television in a triple play formula. All other companies offer also fixed telephony in a duo play formula.
Belgium has three major fiberglass cable internet providers:
These companies all offer fixed telephony and digital television in a triple play formula.
These companies all offer specialised services.
Other ISP are Chat.be, Connexeon, HostIT, Microsoft Belgium, Netlog, Ulysse, Ven Brussels, Rack66 (EUSIP bvba), WSD Hosting.
The microwave relay network is, however, more limited. For international communications, Belgium has 5 submarine cables and a number of satellite earth stations, two of which are Intelsat, and one Eutelsat.
Communications in Gibraltar comprise a wide range of telephony systems, Internet access, broadcasting and satellite control. There is also printed and online media. Regulation of telecommunications and broadcasting are the responsibility of the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority (GRA), established by means of the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority Act in 2000.
Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), or Plain Ordinary Telephone System, is a retronym for voice-grade telephone service employing analog signal transmission over copper loops. Originally POTS stood for Post Office Telephone Service as early phone lines in most parts of the world were operated directly by the local Post Office.
The Proximus Group is a provider of digital services and communication solutions operating in Belgium and international markets. In Belgium, the company offers its main products and services under the brands Proximus, Scarlet, and Mobile Vikings. The Group also operates in Luxembourg as Proximus Luxembourg SA, with the brandsTango and Telindus Luxembourg, and in the Netherlands as Telindus Netherlands. Internationally, activities are carried out by BICS and Telesign. Proximus Accelerators is the ecosystem of IT partners Be-Mobile, ClearMedia, Codit, Davinsi Labs, Proximus Spearit and Telindus.
KPN is a Dutch telecommunications company. KPN originated from a government-run postal, telegraph and telephone service and is based in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Telephone numbers in Japan consist of an area code, an exchange number, and a subscriber number.
A naked DSL, also known as standalone or dry loop DSL, is a digital subscriber line (DSL) without a PSTN service — or the associated dial tone. In other words, only a standalone DSL Internet service is provided on the local loop.
Proximus is the largest of Belgium's three mobile telecommunications companies and is a part of Proximus Group. It competes with Orange Belgium and Base.
Telenet Group N.V. is the largest provider of cable broadband services in Belgium. Its business comprises the provision of analog and digital cable television, fixed and mobile telephone services, primarily to residential customers in Flanders and Brussels. In addition, Telenet offers services to business customers all across Belgium and in Luxembourg under its brand Telenet Solutions.
SFR is a French telecommunications company. It is both the second oldest mobile network operator and the second largest telecommunications company in France, after Orange.
Base is the third largest of Belgium's three mobile telecommunications operators. It is a subsidiary of Telenet. It competes with Proximus and Orange Belgium. It was previously owned by KPN and sold to Telenet in 2015.
Numericable was a major French cable operator and telecommunications services company. Numericable was originally created in 2007 from the merger between former competitors Noos and NC Numericable networks. Numericable Group SA was founded in August 2013 to act as the parent company of Numericable group companies and to offer its shares on the stock exchange. The company provides cable broadband services in France, Luxembourg and Portugal, offering digital and analog television, Internet, and phone services to homes. From 2008, Numericable also offered mobile telephone services to its customers.
Neuf Cegetel was a French wireline telecommunications service provider and a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). It offered various telecommunications services to consumers, enterprises and wholesale customers, ranking second in the country in annual revenues. It was legally established in 2005 following the completion of the merger between Neuf Telecom and Cegetel. As of June 2008, the company became a wholly owned subsidiary of SFR, and the brand disappeared commercially.
Internet in Belgium has a high level of adoption and engagement, with a 93% uptake rate among individuals as of 2022, higher than the EU average of 89%. The country is on par with the EU average regarding digital skills, with 54% of its population having at least basic digital competencies. Illustrated through initiatives like the BeCentral digital campus, Belgium has created programs to boost digital literacy, which has trained over 425,000 students since 2017 to narrow the digital skills gap.
A telephone number in Belgium is a sequence of nine or ten digits dialed on a telephone to make a call on the Belgian telephone network. Belgium is under a full number dialing plan, meaning that the full national number must be dialed for all calls, while it retains the trunk code, '0', for all national dialling.
Television in Belgium was introduced in 1953 and began with one channel each in Dutch and French. The country is heavily cabled, with 93% of households watching television through cable as of 2003.
Scarlet offers fixed telephony, digital television, fixed Internet connections and mobile subscriptions for private consumers.
The mass media in Belgium is characterized by its diversity due to the linguistic divide in the country.
BICS is active in digital communications, cloud communication services, mobility and IoT for telecom players, Virtual Network Operators, service providers, enterprise software providers and global enterprises. It is a subsidiary of Proximus Group. The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium with sales offices and Service Operation Centers worldwide, including Dubai, Singapore, Bern, San Francisco and New York. BICS provides services across more than 200 countries, carries around 50% of the world's data roaming traffic and partners with more than 500 mobile operators. In 2021 BICS carried over 20.8 billion minutes of international traffic and generated revenues for 999 million Euros.
