56% of Spaniards already have access to 100 megabytes broadband

The report 'Broadband Coverage in Spain 2014', prepared by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, analyzes the increase in broadband coverage in Spain in both 4G and fiber networks.

The Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, through the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and the Information Society (SETSI), has published the third edition of the report 'Broadband Coverage in Spain', which corresponds to the first quarter of 2014.

The study highlights that currently 82% of the population has access to 10 megabytes Internet and that Internet coverage at 30 megabytes speed is 60%.

Another significant fact that the report includes is that currently 56% of Spaniards have access to 100 megabytes broadband, which represents an increase of 4% compared to the first half of 2013 thanks to the growth of fiber optics.

The benefits of mobile broadband have been improved with the introduction of 4G, which began to be deployed at the end of the first half of 2013 and whose coverage level has reached 48% of the population.

Additionally, an analysis of broadband coverage in rural areas has been carried out, finding that Internet coverage at a speed of 10 megabytes is 70%, at a speed of 30 megabytes it is 24%, and that 3.5G mobile broadband coverage reaches 95% of the population in rural environments.

Objective of the Digital Agenda and the Telecommunications Law

This report is one of the measures contained in the Ultra-fast telecommunications and networks Plan of the Digital Agenda for Spain approved in June 2013, which places the deployment of ultra-fast broadband access infrastructures as one of the main political and strategic objectives of the current decade, in line with what has been done by both the European Union and the majority of OECD countries.

Among the objectives established by the Digital Agenda is to ensure that by 2020 all people can have Internet access services with speeds above 30 megabytes and that 50% of homes are subscribed to connections capable of offering speeds above 100 megabytes.

For its part, Law 9/2014, of May 9, General Telecommunications, incorporates in its eighteenth additional provision the objective of achieving the universalization of Internet access at 10 Mbps in 2017. This same provision contemplates the preparation of an ultra-fast broadband coverage report that allows precise knowledge of the situation of provision of broadband electronic communications services and that allows identifying those areas where market gaps exist.

Preparation of the Report

The coverage maps allow for a periodic evaluation of the actions and their approach towards the 2020 horizon and, where appropriate, adapt the measures based on the results derived from their application.
Based on the data collected at the beginning of 2014 from the operators of the largest broadband networks among the 61,667 unique population entities existing in Spain and the methodology developed by the SETSI, it has been possible to obtain the combined coverage of all operators, by technological platform and by set of technological platforms, for any territorial area.