Madrid and Barcelona concentrate 62% of installed fiber optic accesses in Spain

Madrid (with 33 lines per 100 inhabitants), Barcelona (31.3) and Guipúzcoa (29.5) register the highest fixed broadband penetration.

The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has published the Report on final services and telecommunications infrastructure by provinces and autonomous communities corresponding to the financial year 2013, which includes penetration data broken down geographically (postpaid mobile telephony, fixed broadband, telephone landline and pay television). It also details the number of accesses by technology, number of base stations and market shares by operators in each area.

Thus, Madrid (with 33 lines per 100 inhabitants), Barcelona (31.3) and Guipúzcoa (29.5) were the three provinces with the highest fixed broadband penetration, and are above the national average, which was 26.2 lines per 100 inhabitants. On the contrary, the provinces with the least broadband access were Jaén (17.9 lines per 100 inhabitants), Murcia (18.1) and Huelva (18.2). The provinces that experienced the greatest year-on-year growth in the number of lines were Cuenca, with 18.9% more (up to 19.8 lines per 100 inhabitants) and Ávila, with 17.3% (up to 21.8 ).

By technology, xDSL was the majority broadband technology in Spain with a penetration of 20 lines per 100 inhabitants, compared to 4.6 lines per 100 inhabitants for cable and 1.3 lines per 100 inhabitants for FTTH. (fiber optics to the home). This latest technology reached 6,954 million installed accesses in 2013: Madrid (with 2,710 million accesses) and Barcelona (with 1,589 million accesses) accounted for 62% of the national total.

In postpaid mobile telephony, Madrid registers the highest penetration with 94.9 lines per 100 inhabitants, followed by Barcelona (81) and Guipúzcoa (77). The island provinces, the Balearic Islands and Las Palmas, have been the ones that registered the most significant year-on-year growth in postpaid mobile telephony, with 8.1% and 8% more lines.

Pay television added a total of 3.9 million subscribers in 2013, with a penetration of 8.4 subscribers per 100 inhabitants. Asturias (16 subscribers per hundred inhabitants), Cádiz (11) and Cantabria (10.5) are the provinces with the highest penetration in pay television.

Access to the report.

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