This is excellent news for the inhabitants of the “white areas”, those areas of our country which are not, or very badly, connected to the internet. By the end of October, 30 Walloon municipalities and above all 28,000 households should benefit from a better connection, thanks to an agreement between the operator VOO and the Walloon Region.
The agreement provides that VOO will install the fiber in the failing villages. In return, Wallonia bears half of the cost of the works. The total budget is estimated at 25 million euros, the Region will take 12 on its own.
This announcement is very good news for the municipalities concerned, including Ohey. “This poses problems because a good number of prospective buyers approach municipal administrations to find out the state of the telecommunications network. We were forced to answer that there were problems, which in some cases caused investors to turn back“, regrets Christophe Gilon, the mayor. He assures us that without the financial assistance of the public authorities, VOO “could not have done the work“.