Medellín Digital: Free Public WiFi & Digital Inclusion
This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.
How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means
Launched in 2007 and never rebranded, the program simply kept adding access points under its original name: 411 free WiFi spots, more than 40 million connections logged in 2025.
what does this mean?
The strongest source is the operator's or the city's own reporting — an official report, dataset or press release. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 9 more in Medellín · 🪪 Digital government guide · 🏛️ Governance projects
Medellín Digital launched in 2007, backed by the city, the national Communications Ministry and utility UNE-EPM, to close the digital divide. Today the Secretaría de Innovación Digital runs 411 free WiFi points across all 16 comunas and 5 corregimientos, plus telecenters helping residents complete government procedures online.
📊 Impact
The public WiFi network logged more than 40 million connections in 2025, official Alcaldía de Medellín figures show.
🎓 Lesson
A 2007 connectivity program can stay alive nearly two decades later simply by continuing to add access points under the same name, rather than being replaced by a rebrand.
Sources
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Compare this project
Who owns the fibre?
Four cities that decided broadband was infrastructure rather than a service someone else provides — and took four different positions on how far a municipality should go.
| Project | Since | Status | Outcome | Evidence | Run by | Cost | How far the city went |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stokab: Stockholm's Municipal Open-Access Dark Fibre NetworkStockholm, 🇸🇪 | 1994 | Live | Succeeded | Official | City government | not public | The city owns dark fibre and leases it to anyone on equal terms, and has never sold internet itself — the shared physical layer, built once. |
| EPB Gig City — Fiber-Optic Smart Grid & Community BroadbandChattanooga, 🇺🇸 | 2008 | Live | Succeeded | Independent | Utility or public operator | not public | The municipal utility built the fibre for its own grid automation and became the retail internet provider on top of it. |
| Medellín Digital: Free Public WiFi & Digital InclusionMedellín, 🇨🇴 | 2007 | Live | Ongoing | Official | City government | not public | No fibre of its own: the city buys access, running free public wifi points and telecentres across every comuna. |
| Smart DocklandsDublin, 🇮🇪 | 2017 | Live | Ongoing | Independent | City government, Research institution | not public | Neither owner nor provider — the city brokered a neutral-host testbed so operators could share one set of masts. |
Explore the wider context
📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Medellín Digital: Free Public WiFi & Digital Inclusion” — Medellín, Colombia. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/medellin-digital/ (last verified 2026-07-30). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.