- The Government publishes the order for the New Generation Broadband Extension Plan (PEBA-NGA 2020-2022) with the aim of achieving greater effectiveness in reducing the territorial digital divide.
- The next calls for aid, co-financed with the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), will increase the coverage of the very high-capacity connectivity infrastructure that has made it easier to maintain the country's activity during the COVID-19 health crisis.
April 14, 2020.- The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation today published the new order of bases for the New Generation Broadband Extension Plan (PEBA-NGA) 2020-2022, whose main objective is to promote the connectivity of the population in a more effective way, contributing to a greater degree to territorial cohesion and the reduction of the digital divide. Aid is co-financed with the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
PEBA-NGA has complemented over the years the action of the private sector, enabling Spain to have the most extensive fiber optic network in Europe with 45 million accesses to the home (FTTH) and more than ten million subscribers, doubling the users of other broadband technologies.
The connectivity infrastructures developed have facilitated during the current health crisis of COVID-19 that the disruption of the pandemic has not been complemented by the interruption of access to digital services, giving continuity to the economic and social activity of companies and entities, and alleviating the situation of confinement of citizens.
The PEBA-NGA 2020-2022 will grant aid to extend the coverage of very high-speed broadband electronic communications networks (more than 100 Mbps, scalable to 1Gbps, both downstream and upstream) to areas without coverage current NGA networks (New Generation Access) and that they do not have three-year deployment forecasts, known as NGA white areas.
Additionally, last December the Government obtained the authorization of the European Commission to also include the so-called gray areas, those, where there is a single operator that can provide services at speeds of more than 30 Mbps, but without coverage to more than 100 Mbps.
PEBA-NGA Program
In the 2013-2019 period, aid was granted to 130 operators to carry out 753 projects with an associated investment of 871.40 million euros and aid of 478.90 million euros. More than half of that amount was granted in the last two years (2018 and 2019). Specifically, in the 2019 call, 140.14 million euros were granted, which have served to cover 705,974 households and companies in 12,760 Singular Population Entities (ESP).
When the projects with aid granted in previous calls end next year, ultra-fast speed coverage will have reached 91% of the Spanish population.
