science

Telecommunications in Belgium

Telecommunications in Belgium is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Telecommunications in Belgium rather than just read about it. In short: Communications in Belgium are extensive and advanced. Belgium possesses the infrastructure for both mobile and land-based telecom, as well as having significant television, radio and internet infrastructure.

Key takeaways

Telecommunications in Belgium belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Telecommunications in Belgium to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Telecommunications in Belgium from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Communications in Belgium are extensive and advanced. 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.

Services

Mail

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.

Telephone

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.

Fixed telephones 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 telephones 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.

Internet 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.

Internet providers

xDSL Internet Providers Belgium has numerous copper cable internet providers:

Altercom *End service: 2011 Proximus Base *End service: 2014 Destiny Digiweb EDPnet Evonet Full Telecom Interxion iPFix LCL Mobistar (Orange S.A.) *End service : 2013 Numericable (France Numericable) Perceval Portima Proximedia Group Scarlet (Belgacom) Verizon Business (Verizon Communications) Ergatel 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.

Cable Internet Providers Belgium has three major fiberglass cable internet providers:

Numéricable for the Brussels region (Ypso Holding) Telenet for the Flanders and Brussels regions (Liberty Global) Base VOO for the Walloon and Brussels regions (TECTEO) Orange Belgium use Telenet and VOO network combined These companies all offer fixed telephony and digital television in a triple play formula.

Interoute Managed Services Interxion LCL Nucleus Verizon Business (Verizon Communications) These companies all offer specialised services.

Terrestrial Internet Providers Clearwire in Brussels, Ghent, Leuven, Aalst, Halle and Vilvoorde (Sprint Nextel) Perceval

Satellite Internet Providers Verizon Business (Verizon Communications)

ISP for public services The Brussels Regional Informatics Center (BRIC, Centre d'Informatique pour la Région Bruxelloise in French) offers Internet access to public administrations in the Brussels-Capital Region, relying directly on the national Belnet network and the IRISnet network.

Not categorized Other ISP are Chat.be, Connexeon, HostIT, Microsoft Belgium, Netlog, Ulysse, Ven Brussels, Rack66 (EUSIP bvba), WSD Hosting.

Other 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.

References

External links

BIPT - Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications ISPA - Internet Service Providers Association of Belgium DNS - Domain Name System Belgium MAVISE - Belgian TV market Archived 2017-03-17 at the Wayback Machine Agoria - Federation of Belgian IT Employers Beltug - Federation of Belgian ICT Professionals UPP - Union of Belgian Periodical Press Publishers Febelma - Belgian Federation of Magazines VRM - Flemish Media Regulator (Dutch community) CSA - High Council for the Audiovisual Media (French community) MDGB - Germanic Media Council of Belgium (Germanic community)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Telecommunications in Belgium

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Telecommunications in Belgium claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Telecommunications in Belgium before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Telecommunications in Belgium ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Telecommunications in Belgium

In research: Telecommunications in Belgium appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Telecommunications in Belgium in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Telecommunications in Belgium is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Telecommunications in Belgium, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Telecommunications in Belgium outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Telecommunications in Belgium in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Telecommunications in Belgium means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Telecommunications in Belgium out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Telecommunications in Belgium in simple terms?

Why does Telecommunications in Belgium matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Telecommunications in Belgium?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Telecommunications in Belgium.