Public support for broadband deployment in Spain: Improving connectivity and competitiveness
Broadband deployment
Fecha: julio 2024
Pablo Delgado Cubillo and Gabriella Németh Kecskeméti
SEFO, Spanish and International Economic & Financial Outlook, V. 13 N.º4 (July 2024)
Spain has experienced an increase in connectivity over the past decade, positioning itself as one of the leading countries in the European Union. Public support through broadband deployment subsidies has positively contributed to this evolution. Between 2013 and 2020, broadband deployment support programs in Spain mobilized a total investment of 672 million euros, with public support accounting for 51% of this total. Spain’s competition authority, the CNMC, conducted a quantitative study of these subsidies between 2013 and 2020, which concluded that they have been effective in improving connectivity and creating positive competition synergies by increasing the variety of operators. Indeed, in 2020, nearly 4,000 municipalities out of more than the 8,000 existing municipalities had an active connexion to fiber optic networks (FTTH), constituting an enormous improvement compared to 2013, where only 270 municipalities (the most populated) had FTTH. Similar improvement is found from the perspective of concentration, considering that the number of municipalities with FTTH connections and a single operator decreased from 87% to 9% between 2013 and 2020. The improvements are most notable in smaller municipalities, with populations of fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, suggesting that public efforts should focus on fostering broadband deployment improvements in these types of municipalities.