Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

has well-developed

Internet infrastructure __NOTOC__ Critical Internet infrastructure is a collective term for all hardware and software systems that constitute essential components in the operation of the Internet. Background Several studies and events have helped to define the scope of ...

, ranking among the top countries in the world in terms of total number of Internet users, fixed broadband users, mobile broadband users, and Internet hosts. Providers typically offer download speeds of 30Mbit/s to 1Gbit/s, and upload speeds of 10Mbit/s to 75Mbit/s. Historically, Belgian Internet providers have imposed

data cap A data cap, often erroneously referred to as a bandwidth cap, is an artificial restriction imposed on the transfer of data over a network. In particular, it refers to policies imposed by an internet service provider in order to limit customers' u ...

s on their subscribers, but lately this practice has been disappearing as Belgian Internet infrastructure has expanded. Law enforcement in Belgium does take action against crimes committed on the Internet and filters websites hosting content that is illegal under Belgian law. Individual freedom of expression online is typically not violated by the government unless the expression could be classified as

holocaust denial Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...

or incitement to hatred.

Status

* Internet users: 8.6 million, 43rd in the world; 82.0% of the population, 27th in the world (2012)."Percentage of Individuals using the Internet 2000-2012"
International Telecommunication Union (Geneva), June 2013, retrieved 22 June 2013 * Fixed broadband: 3.6 million subscribers, 25th in the world; 34.1% of population, 12th in the world (2012)."Fixed (wired)-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants 2012"
, Dynamic Report, ITU ITC EYE,

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

. Retrieved on 29 June 2013. * Mobile broadband: 3.5 million subscribers, 46th in the world; 33.7% of population, 48th in the world (2012)."Active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants 2012"
, Dynamic Report, ITU ITC EYE,

. Retrieved on 29 June 2013. * Internet hosts: 5.2 million, 21st in the world (2012)."Belgium Communications"
, ''World Factbook'', U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 29 October 2013. *

Top level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

.be .be is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Belgium. As of November 2022 there are 1,746,459 registered domains. History The domain became active in 1989 and was administrated by Pierre Verbaeten of the Katholieke Universiteit ...

.brussels

.gent .gent is a GeoTLD for Ghent, Flanders in Belgium. See also *.be .be is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Belgium. As of November 2022 there are 1,746,459 registered domains. History The domain became active in 1989 and was ...

.vlaanderen * IPv4 addresses: 11.1 million, 0.3% of worldwide total, 1,068 addresses per person (2012).

DSL, ADSL, and VDSL

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...

first appeared in

in 1999, named Turboline. The first network was set up by the incumbent Belgian telecom operator

Belgacom The Proximus Group is a provider of digital services and communication in Belgium and the international markets. In Belgium, its main products and services are offered under the Proximus, Scarlet, and Mobile Vikings brands. The Group is also ac ...

and has been expanding ever since. In 2004 nearly 90% of the entire territory had access to ADSL from Belgacom. Belgacom's daughter company Skynet was the first officially supported ADSL provider, but now many more have gained popularity and almost all provide full triple play services (Television/Internet/Telephone). Alongside the Belgacom ADSL network, several operators including Scarlet, Mobistar and Versatel have created a secondary network, based on

local loop unbundling Local loop unbundling (LLU or LLUB) is the regulatory process of allowing multiple telecommunications operators to use connections from the telephone exchange to the customer's premises. The physical wire connection between the local exchange and ...

. In 2009 the competitors of Belgacom started to offer

VDSL2 Very high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) and very high-speed digital subscriber line 2 (VDSL2) are digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies providing data transmission faster than the earlier standards of asymmetric digital subscriber li ...

connections instead of

ADSL2+ G.992.5 (also referred to as ADSL2+, G.dmt.bis+, and G.adslplus) is an ITU-T standard for asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) broadband Internet access. The standard has a maximum theoretical downstream sync speed of 24 megabits per second ...

. Belgacom, rebranded into Proximus in 2014, is the only owner of historical telephone networks, available to households, in Belgium. Other providers use Proximus's infrastructure as well.

Providers

* EDPnet *

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

Proximus Proximus (stylised as pro⌘imus; formerly known as Belgacom Mobile) is the largest of Belgium's three mobile telecommunications companies and is a part of Proximus Group (previously Belgacom Group). It competes with Orange Belgium and Base. ...

* Scarlet *

Telenet Telenet was an American commercial packet-switched network which went into service in 1975. It was the first FCC-licensed public data network in the United States. Various commercial and government interests paid monthly fees for dedicated lines ...

* United Telecom

Cable

Belgium also has cable networks. The biggest one, taken over by

in 1997, covers almost all of

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...

. Speeds vary from 100 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s down. As of June 2020, 93% of Telenet's nodes support Gigabit speeds. If Gigabit speeds are not available on a customer's node, the second fastest speed Telenet offers for residential plans, is 400 Mbit/s. Even with Gigabit download speeds, upload speeds are limited to 'only' 40 Mbit/s for residential plans. It is believed Telenet will not increase their upload speed, because DSL can not exceed 40 Mbit/s upload due to hardware restrictions, until Proximus rolls out supervectoring. This means that for most households, 40 Mbit/s upload is the maximum they can get. Only providers using fiber and LTE networks offer faster uploads, but home internet over LTE is nowhere near as popular (yet), and FttH networks are still pretty new in Belgium and not widely available. As of 2020, Telenet and VOO are the only owners of coaxial networks (originally built for transferring radio and TV signals). Other providers use their infrastructure as well. ;Providers *

Orange Belgium Orange Belgium (known as Orange) is a Belgian telecommunications company. It competes with Proximus and Base. It was incorporated by France Télécom in 1996 under the name of Mobistar. The company re-branded as Orange on 9 May 2016 (following ...

(all of Belgium, using both Telenet and VOO's network) *

. (Flanders (Dutch speaking part) and multilingual Brussels) * VOO. (Wallonia (French speaking part) and multilingual Brussels)

Bandwidth and transfer limits

Download speeds in Brussels are now reaching a good level, however, the majority of Belgians have bandwidth caps in place to limit the amount of data users can transfer through their connection. Typically these are between 5GB/month and 1000GB/month and show that the competition in this market has not been strong enough to drive out these practices which have vanished in other western and eastern European countries. In June 2008 the Belgian Internet providers Dommel and Yab
ADSL
announced nationwide ADSL subscriptions without the data limits. In February 2010 the major operators of Belgium, including Telenet and Belgacom, announced tariffs with unlimited caps, but still with FUP formulas (fair usage policy). However, some of them have adapted the FUP so it only counts on specific hours of the day.

IPv6 adoption

In 2014, Belgium has the world's highest adoption rate of

IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. IPv ...

connectivity.

Internet censorship

* Not individually classified by the

OpenNet Initiative The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) was a joint project whose goal was to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations. The project employed a number of technical means, as well as an international network of investigato ...

(ONI), but included in ONI's regional overview for Europe."ONI Regional Overview: Europe"
OpenNet Initiative, March 2010. * Freedom House reports in its ''Freedom in the World 2013'' report that freedom of speech and

the press ''The Press'' is a daily newspaper published in Christchurch, New Zealand owned by media business Stuff Ltd. First published in 1861, the newspaper is the largest circulating daily in the South Island and publishes Monday to Saturday. One comm ...

are guaranteed by the constitution and generally respected by the government and that Internet access is unrestricted. There are no government restrictions on access to the Internet or credible reports that the government monitors

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

or Internet

chat rooms The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...

without appropriate legal authority. Individuals and groups engage in the expression of views via the Internet, including by e-mail. The Belgian constitution and law provide for freedom of speech, including for members of the press, and the government generally respects these rights in practice. An independent press, an effective judiciary, and a functioning democratic political system combine to ensure freedom of speech and press. The constitution and legal code prohibit arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence, and the government generally respects these prohibitions in practice."Belgium"
''Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012'', Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, 22 March 2013. Retrieved 12 November 2013. Subject to warrants requested by the prosecutor all Belgian Internet providers have been filtering several websites at the DNS level since April 2009. This may be done when the websites are engaged in illegal activities or when they display information that is "contrary to public order or morality".Grote Belgische firewall geactiveerd (Belgian Grand firewall activated)
, Luc Van Braekel, LVB.net, 21 April 2009. Retrieved 9 November 2013. People who browse the Internet using one of these providers and hit a blocked website are redirected to a page that claims that the content of the website is illegal under Belgian law and therefore blocked. In contrast to other countries, the Web sites were filtered not because of displaying pornographic content but in order to guarantee the privacy rights of suspects or criminals who committed sexual offenses against children and whose identity was accordingly revealed in the targeted Web sites.

Holocaust denial Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...

and incitement to hatred are criminal offenses punishable by a minimum of eight days (for Holocaust denial) and one month (incitement to hatred) up to one-year in prison and fines, plus a possible revocation of the right to vote or run for public office.

References

External links

Belgian National Internet eXchange
(BNIX), website.
Belnet
website of the Belgian national research network.
DNS Belgium
website in English. {{DEFAULTSORT:Internet In Belgium