The Government grants 130 million euros in aid to the deployment of very high speed broadband

 The Government approves projects worth 202.12 million euros to curb the digital divide in rural Spain

 With these grants, the Broadband Extension Plan will provide access to more than 100 Mbps to another 1,924,916 citizens

 The beneficiary projects will expand very high speed broadband coverage from the current 76% to more than 80%

This morning the resolution of the 2018 call for the National Broadband Broadband Program of New Generation (PEBA-NGA), managed by the Ministry of Economy and Business through the Secretary of State for Digital Advancement was published and financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Following the evaluation of the proposals received in 2018, the granting of 203 grants for 130 million euros has been favorably estimated, which, added to the contributions of the beneficiary operators, will involve a total investment of 202.12 million euros.

The objective of the PEBA-NGA is to accelerate the extension of the coverage of very high speed broadband networks (more than 100 Mbps), supporting its deployment in areas without current or planned coverage in the next three years, called 'zones white '. White areas are mainly located in rural and dispersed areas, which is therefore a key instrument to close the digital geographic divide, face the demographic challenge and build a more inclusive society.

The support of PEBA-NGA to the investment effort of private operators, who have chosen to deploy their own new generation networks, has contributed to the coverage of 100 Mbps broadband reaching 76% of Spaniards. Spain has the largest fiber optic network to the home (FTTH) in Europe with more than 35 million accesses.

It is estimated that the new infrastructures that will be deployed with the support of this PEBA-NGA call will provide very high-speed broadband coverage to 1,248,548 households and companies located in 4,168 different singular population entities, where 1,924,916 reside citizens With this, once the subsidized projects are deployed, very high speed broadband coverage will reach more than 80% of citizens, laying the foundations for the development of an entrepreneurial nation.

The following table shows the distribution of aid granted in the different Autonomous Communities: