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Spain: FTTH up 50%

January 17, 2017

Installed fibre to the home (FTTH) connections in Spain have increased by more than 50 per cent during 2016 to 22.6 million according to the latest statistical data from the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC) on fixed broadband services and deployment of new generation networks with geographic detail based on data from December 2015.

Cable operators added 109,000 thousand new connections to their hybrid fibre-coax DOCSIS 3.0 access networks reaching 10.12 million as at December 2015.

Movistar remained the operator with the largest number of FTTH connections. The traditional alternative operators of xDSL – Orange and Vodafone – accounted for 36.4 per cent of total FTTH connections, compared to 31.1 per cent in the previous year. The CNMC notes, however, that the FTTH connections of the alternative operators accounted for more than 70 per cent of the new connections contracted. DOCSIS 3.0 connections consolidated a 74 per cent share of HFC connections.

According to the CNMC, competition from the alternative operators resulted in an increase of their quota in most of the municipalities. The figures reflect that the percentage of the xDSL connections of the alternative operators fell in the municipalities with a population greater than 10,000 inhabitants and only increased in those municipalities with little presence of FTTH networks.

The share of FTTH and HFC connections of these operators increased in all municipalities, to a greater extent in those with populations greater than 100,000.

In terms of the percentage represented by new generation connections over total active broadband connections, CNMC notes that in the cities of Madrid and Barcelona, FTTH connections accounted for 48.4 per cent and 40.8 per cent of total connections respectively, compared to 33.1 per cent and 29.3 per cent in the previous year.

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