The government grants 140 million euros in aid for the deployment of very high-speed broadband

The Ministry of Economy and Enterprise has published the resolution of the call for 2019 of the National Program of Extension of New Generation Broadband (PEBA-NGA). This programme, managed by the State Secretariat for Digital Advancement, is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Following the evaluation of the proposals received, the grant of aid to 125 projects from 41 different operators valued at EUR 140.15 million was favourably estimated. This means granting 93.43% of the funds available annually for the PEBA Program, 14.25% more than in the previous call. With the contributions to be made by the beneficiary operators, the total investment in the awarded projects will amount to 199.79 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), facilitating their deployment in the areas with no current or planned coverage in the next three years, called ‘white areas’. White areas are mainly located in rural and dispersed areas, and this programme is therefore a key instrument for closing the geographical digital divide, addressing the demographic challenge and building a more inclusive society.

PEBA-NGA’s support for the investment effort of private operators has contributed to the 100 Mbps broadband coverage reaching 81% of Spanish citizens (data as of June 31, 2018). The deployment of this type of networks is carried out mainly in our country with fiber optic technology to the home (FTTH).

It is estimated that the new infrastructure that will be deployed with the support of this PEBA-NGA call will provide very high-speed broadband coverage to 706,000 households and companies located in 13,650 unique population entities. Once the subsidized projects are deployed, in 2021, the coverage of very high speed broadband will reach 93.45% of the citizens.

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