Bavaria’s state government plans to offer free WLAN in all Bavarian communities by 2020. Within the next five years, 10,000 hotspots are due to be installed at 5,000 locations, and 100 hotspots before the end of this year. Municipalities are expected to be able to use the service for free as well, according to finance minister Markus Soeder. He estimates the costs at about EUR 10 million, while the communities will carry the operational costs, which are about EUR 55 per hotspot per month. 

Access points will be first installed in all independent towns and at financial authorities, which include the state-run palaces as well as the ships on Ammersee, Lake Starnberg, Tegernsee and Koenigssee. All networks are called “@BayernWLAN”, and do not require registration nor a password. In order to accelerate the programme, a WLAN centre is due to be opened in Straubing to help communities with the application and technical realisation of the project. 

The SPD parliamentary group expects the costs to exceed the planned EUR 10 million. According to an expert report conducted on behalf of SPD, the annual costs for construction and operation of the networks will be EUR 5.8 million until 2020, and then increase to EUR 13 to 18 million per year. Soeder also demands that the regulations for WLAN providers be further improved, ensuring a level playing field for liability of providers and greater clarity on copyright rules.