First edition of the Forum #WholesaleSPAIN

Onivia and Nae publish the first report on the wholesale FTTH market in Spain

• Telefónica, Orange, Vodafone and MásMóvil lead in the number of broadband accesses.
• There is a heavy concentration of operators in Madrid, Barcelona, and south-eastern provinces such as Valencia, Alicante, and Murcia.
• Cities with more than one million inhabitants have an average download speed of 207 Mbps, while in municipalities with less than one thousand inhabitants is 141 Mbps.

Spain has more than 1,400 internet service providers and leads the penetration and adoption of fibre services among European countries of similar size. As of 2022, Spain had 87% fibre national coverage, compared to the European average of 58%, and in rural areas 74% coverage, while the European average stands at 35%.

The wholesale fibre operator Onivia and the telecommunications consultancy Nae presented the results of the report at the #WholesaleSPAIN Forum, held in Madrid.

Among other conclusions the report highlights the broad distribution of national and regional operators across the country, with a heavy concentration in Madrid, Barcelona, and south-eastern provinces such as Valencia, Alicante, and Murcia.

Access to broadband infrastructure is vital to achieving connectivity goals. Onivia’s goal is to promote access to high-quality fibre optic access without barriers to entry, fostering competition, and the growth and development for the greatest number of telecommunications operators benefitting the end users.

“With this first edition of the #WholesaleSPAIN Forum and the report we are presenting to you, we want to reinforce our commitment to the sector, and particularly to the crucial contribution that both the neutral operators and the regional and local operators generate in the Spanish market. We want this meeting to become from now on a reference for the different players in the wholesale telecommunications market”, says José Antonio Vázquez Blanco, CEO of Onivia.

“The role of wholesale fibre operators is becoming increasingly important to bring fibre optics and associated services to every corner of our country, delivering benefits to both companies in the sector and to the end customer. This developing market is highly competitive, with many opportunities, and is actively consolidating around a few players, with medium-sized operators already connecting many municipalities in the rural Spain”, explains Cristóbal Escoda, co-CEO of Nae.

The report reveals that the predominant technology is fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) with 14 million lines, while hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) has fallen to 2 million.

The study has classified operators into three tiers, depending on their size and presence. The first tier englobes the largest operators in Spain in terms of new generation broadband accesses: Telefónica, Orange, Vodafone and MásMóvil.

The second tier is composed of Digi, Avatel and Adamo, the main market challengers. In third place are local operators such as the Olin Group, Aire Networks, PTV Telecom, E Ports, Fibwi, Sarenet, Tecnolanza and Fibergreen, which are leaders in 189 municipalities, especially in the southeast of the peninsula.

In terms of download speed, Tier 1 and Tier 2 operators show similar results. Cities with more than one million inhabitants have an average download speed of 207 Mbps, while in municipalities with less than one thousand inhabitants the average download speed is of 141 Mbps. The Spanish average download speed is of 178 Mbps.

The report also identifies six major trends that will impact the wholesale fibre market: edge computing, cloudification, XGS-PON connectivity, the European goal of gigabit connectivity, the increased rural FTTP deployment and the potential market consolidation.

The report concludes by emphasising the high levels of market competition, with highly concentrated geographic areas and a segmentation of providers based on the size of the municipality. In addition, numerous agreements between key players have been identified and will continue to evolve as the market grows. Finally, it is noted that the key to success lies in the balance between regulated and private arrangements, both of which are continuously evolving.