Hontoba (Guadalajara)- The Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures, María González Veracruz, visited today the town of Hontoba (Guadalajara), where more than 200 homes have been ‘illuminated’, which, since today, have ultra-fast broadband access.
From the plenary hall of the city council, the Secretary of State together with the mayor of the town, Pedro David Pardo, the Councilor for Sustainable Development of the Junta de Castilla La-Mancha, José Luis Escudero, and the president of the Diputació de Guadalajara, José Luis Vega, have pressed the symbolic ‘on’ button of this municipality that to date did not have high-capacity connectivity.
During his speech, González Veracruz has highlighted the arrival of the network that connects us to this municipality of Guadalajara as part of a strategy designed by the Government to reach all corners. “These broadband extension programs are born from the idea of real equality, of what we call territorial cohesion,” said the Secretary of State, who has also recalled key programs to reach the entire population such as the UNICO Bono social, aimed at vulverable families and whose management is being carried out by the regional government.
The implementation of the call for applications for the UNICO Broadband 2022 program, which was resolved in November last year, will make it possible for operators to bring the ultra-fast broadband network to 233 municipalities and more than 21,000 households and companies in the province. The aid granted amounts to EUR 7.14 million. In the whole of Castilla La-Mancha, the budget amounts to 19.5 million euros.
“The digital and green transformation of this country means economic strength, employment and having reasons to continue increasing the number of registrants in Hontoba and in all rural areas of Spain,” said the Secretary of State.
The mayor of the town, David Pardo, has expressed his satisfaction with the boost given to connectivity in Hontoba, which has grown in number of neighbors and neighbors, and hopes to continue doing so in the future for the opportunities offered by high-speed connectivity.
For his part, the Minister of Sustainable Development of the Junta de Castilla La-Mancha, José Luis Escudero, has indicated that they will continue to encourage deployments in close collaboration with the State Government, operating companies and local administrations, so that over the next 24 months the optical fiber is deployed in more than 600 new locations, 85 percent of them in depopulated areas.”
The event was also attended by the Deputy Delegate of the Government Mercedes Gómez, the Director General of Territorial Cohesion, Alipio García, and the provincial head of the technical inspection, José Alberto Benito.
About the UNICO-Broadband Program
The first call for the UNICO Broadband aid programme, worth 250 million euros and which was resolved at the end of 2021, plans to bring ultra-fast broadband to 4,151 municipalities throughout Spain. The second call, whose resolution was published in November with an allocation of 244 million euros, will extend broadband to 720,000 new municipalities.
The goal of the UNICO broadband program is to achieve 100% broadband coverage by 2025 at the national level, to advance territorial cohesion and break the connectivity gap. This connectivity will allow citizens and companies to benefit from all the advantages offered by digitalization, representing equality and avoiding the exclusion of connectivity in rural or ultra-remote areas.