Spain telecoms are moving from copper to fiber

Movistar, the largest and most important Spanish telecom, is going to turn its copper networks located in its Torrelodones and Sant Cugat municipalities’ stations and start deploying optical fiber instead, with the goal of offering its clients a better service.

The broadband optical fiber services have already reached 14 million Spanish homes, thus the incumbent announced there will be optical fiber deployments in another 36 stations located in 16 provinces, expecting to reach more than 25 million homes by 2020.

But Movistar competitors are moving forward too. Vodafone optical fiber services have been implemented in 8.4 million homes and the company has plans to reach 10 million homes at the end of 2015. Orange Internet is currently available on 5.2 million homes and has the goal expand this range to 10 million homes by the end of 2016.

These digits mean that millions of houses will have FTTH and 80% of telephony service users will have 4G on their mobiles.

Nevertheless, the schedules could change if the CNMC, the Spanish organization that regulates competition, decides that Movistar has to share its network with other ISPs. Currently, the provider is obligated to offer 30mb connections to its competitors, but if that number gets bigger, optical fiber deployment might not be profitable to Movistar.

Source: Xatakamovil.com