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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. Thecountry code for Belgium isBE.
Mail regulation is a national competency. Postal service inBelgium is in many cases performed byBelgian Post Group, a semi-private public company. Competitors includeDHL andUPS.
Postal codes in Belgium consist of four digits which indicate regional areas, e.g. "9000" is the postal code forGhent.
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 nationwidecellular telephone system and an extensive network oftelephone cables. Telephone regulation is a national competency.
Thecountry code for Belgium is32 and theinternational call prefix is00.
Atelephone number inBelgium 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 aclosedtelephone numbering plan, but retains the trunk code, "0", for all national dialling.
There were 4.668 million landtelephone lines in use inBelgium in 2007, a slight decrease on the 4.769 million in use in 1997.
The majority state-owned publictelephone company of Belgium isProximus. Some other or private operators exist, asScarlet (Proximus) andBase (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 licensedmobile network operators (MNO) in Belgium,Proximus (Belgacom),Orange Belgium (Orange S.A.) andTelenet/Base and numerousmobile 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 millioninternet 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 offersfixed telephony anddigital television in atriple play formula. All other companies offer alsofixed telephony in a duo play formula.
Belgium has three major fiberglass cable internet providers:
These companies all offerfixed telephony anddigital television in atriple play formula.
These companies all offer specialised services.
Other ISP areChat.be,Connexeon,HostIT,Microsoft Belgium,Netlog,Ulysse,Ven Brussels,Rack66 (EUSIP bvba),WSD Hosting.
Themicrowave relay network is, however, more limited. For international communications, Belgium has 5 submarine cables and a number of satellite earth stations, two of which areIntelsat, and oneEutelsat.
