November 27, 2023.- The Government, through the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Infrastructure, has published the final resolution proposal of the third call for the UNICO-Broadband Program, which allocates 15,691,473 euros for the development of 9 projects in Castilla y León to continue extending high-speed fiber networks capable of reaching 1 Gigabit to the most remote areas of the country where the private initiative had not arrived.

The following table shows the provincial distribution of these funds in Castilla y León:

In total, this resolution allocates 134 million euros to 50 projects of 151 valid applications in all the autonomous communities. These projects will provide access to an ultra-fast connection (of at least 100 Mbps) to more than 350,000 homes and companies in Spain, and will mobilize a public-private investment of 168 million euros.

The Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures, María González Veracruz, said that “this call will culminate the deployment of fiber that since 2018 has been promoted by the Government of Spain. We are universalizing access to fiber with a global investment of about 1.15 billion euros for the benefit of more than 5 million households and companies.”

González Veracruz has claimed that “we have already eliminated the digital divide between urban and rural by guaranteeing ultra-fast speed of at least 100Mbps with the advanced deployment of fiber and satellite solution for remote areas of the UNICO Rural Demand (https://conectate35.es/) program, and with this call we complete the task to remain at the forefront in Europe, since Spain leads the deployment of fiber to 35 points above the Community average, according to the last Report of the Digital Decade (before DESI).”

In fact, about half of the approved projects focus on areas of high level of rurality, isolation and depopulation of communities and great geographical extension such as Castilla y León, Andalusia and Castilla-La Mancha, and the rest is distributed in other depopulated areas of the Spanish territory.

The expansion of ultra-fast speed electronic communications networks is one of the investments contemplated by the Government within the framework of the Recovery Plan and the Spain Digital 2026 agenda, and is financed with Next Generation EU funds. This initiative is one of the priorities of the Executive that has contributed to the closing of the digital divide in fixed connectivity, promoting the social and territorial cohesion of the country.

About UNICO Broadband

Under the Universalization of Digital Infrastructures for Cohesion (UNICO) program, the Government continues its efforts to promote the deployment of digital infrastructures throughout the country. The UNICO Broadband program was born with the aim of getting the entire territory to have access to very high capacity coverage by 2025, something that is already a reality today.

Through the UNICO Rural Demand program, ultra-fast fixed internet coverage via satellite has already reached the entire population, even in rural areas where fiber optics have not yet arrived, thus eliminating the fixed digital divide in Spain. The UNICO Broadband program continues to boost Gigabit’s connectivity to the entire territory.

The government’s continued commitment to the expansion of connectivity has led Spain to be a leader in ultra-fast connectivity in Europe, significantly exceeding the European average. According to the latest Digital Decade Report prepared by the European Commission, in 2022 87.5% of the Spanish population had access to broadband coverage per fiber of at least 100 Mbps.

To date, the public aid programs implemented since 2018 promote ultra-fast broadband coverage by fiber to 5 million households and companies, mobilizing public and private investments of more than 1.5 billion euros in the development of digital infrastructure in the country.