More than 40 community groups, including youth clubs and unemployment centers, across Britain, are all set to enjoy free WiFi access for a minimum of 3 years, after emerging as winners in a competition run by WiFi hotspot company Freerunner.

The competition, as confirmed by the company, was aiming at connecting "under-served and digitally remote areas of country", and to serve this end, the firm sought to install free access points in various public venues.

The announcement to give away as many as 50 free WiFi connections came from the company back in September, and the firm had said that the connections would be given to "deserving groups around the UK". As many as 500 entries came in for the competition, and after an extensive analysis by the Freerunner's board members, 46 lucky winners have now been picked.

"The Freerunner mission is to give everyone free access to fast WiFi whether you are in a coffee shop in the West End of London or a community centre in the suburbs of Newcastle. We wanted to start with those most in need so we put the call out and the response was pretty overwhelming. It is incredible to think that a small piece of relatively low cost technology is going to fundamentally change nearly 50 communities across the UK", said Owen Geddes, CEO of Freerunner.

Among the winners are a Devon based youth club, a Midlands church working for the betterment of asylum seekers and refugees and a mother-and-toddler group in Stirling.