Abel Losada reviews the unstoppable advance of the broadband plan, which will involve the laying of 3.5 million meters of optical fiber until the end of the year 2025

The Government’s assistant delegate in Pontevedra, Abel Losada, held a working meeting with Óscar Barreiro, head of the company Red Abierta, awarded for the province of Pontevedra the last call of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, to analyze “the final stretch” of the UN-Broadband plan to subsidize the deployment of optical fiber, an operation that will reach the other 18,104 family units and companies from here by the end of 2025.
Abel Losada highlighted the enormous effort of the Government of Spain to bring digital connectivity with minimum symmetrical speeds of 100 “megas” to the second, scalable up to 10 “xigas” depending on the needs of the client, “to the last corner of the last municipality of a province with a population density as high and as dispersed as ours, thus improving our competitiveness and making it possible for everyone to develop a work and life project wherever they decide to reside”. “There is no better investment to equate territories than to equate services,” he insisted.
The total investment mobilized by the companies awarding the subsidies thanks to State aid in the three calls made of the UN-Broadband program reaches almost 26 million euros, thus making possible on arrival of optical fiber the close to 55,000 households and companies in mainly rural areas of our province.
The delegate of Red Abierta explained that the fiber laying works of the annuity of 2024 are already in progress and in the planning phase the corresponding ones until 2025, year in el1 that the coverage will be reached throughout the province. The company, with an award of 7,685,861 euros in this state contract, has planned a total investment in its network that will reach 9,675,858 euros, since it is a neutral operator that rents its infrastructure to operators providing final services.
The Government’s deputy delegate also valued the fact that this last contract of the UNICO plan was only with the last annuity (year 2024) of the previous one, with the company Avatel. In total, 3.5 million meters of optical fiber are expected to be installed in the province of Pontevedra to carry the service to all the cores by December 2025, “which means a great engineering effort to fit all that primary and secondary cabling and the connection nodes.” It studied, on the map, the areas where cable is already being laid, such as the Val Miñor (especially in Nigrán), the Baixo Miño, Arousa, the north of the Deza (Lalín, Agolada and Rodeiro) and the area of the Louriña (O Porriño, Mos and Salceda de Caselas), as well as the Paradanta (Arbo and As Neves).
It was also noted that the fiber is being installed with the latest “XS Spon” technology that guarantees maximum speed and maximum reach, in addition to reaching directly to homes and companies (FTTH). The technological advances that come with this latest call for state aid allow, in addition, speeds that can reach up to 10 “xigas”, a service that is increasingly in demand, despite the fact that very few customers need this bandwidth.
The meeting also addressed the problems that are arising in the installation of the cable and that have to do with permits for installation of poles, steps by hincas and even by facades that already had previous installations. With this respect, the subdelegate transferred the normative innovations that derive from the new Telecommunications Law. The change makes it easier for municipalities to speed up the permits by opening up the possibility of express procedures with responsible declaration or prior communication.
Abel Losada concluded that the UN-Broadband plan “is a clear commitment by the Government to place Spain at the forefront of digitalization in Europe and the world.” “This is a message that must be conveyed to the whole of society so that they feel proud of ours, for what we are doing and for the transformation that we are undertaking of our economy within the framework of a strategic axis of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan that is digitalization.” The subdelegate concluded that the unstoppable advance of fiber optics through our territory also perfectly exemplifies the degree of exploitation of European funds “in the face of some defeatist messages that have little to do with reality.”
The Government’s deputy delegate also explained that those people who, due to the material impossibility of fiber optic distribution, do not have a broadband connection can already benefit from the Government’s Single Rural Demand Program, which offers an ultra-fast satellite Internet connection for a monthly price of 35 euros and which is awarded to the company Hispasat.
The UN-Broadband program is funded by NextGenerationEU to achieve the goal of universal ultra-fast connectivity throughout the territory, as well as the acceleration of 5G deployment, especially in rural areas where commercial profitability by operating companies would slow down their arrival.