Article 52 of the General Law of Telecommunications establishes that those Public Administrations that are holders of physical infrastructures capable of being used for the deployment of public electronic communications networks must facilitate access to them to telecommunications operators. Therefore, any operator who intends to deploy electronic communications networks in a given territory, may request from the competent Public Administration access to the physical infrastructures capable of hosting electronic communications networks that are of its ownership (for example, a conduit through which it can deploy cables). The Public Administration in question and the operator with deployment intentions must reach an agreement for the use of the aforementioned infrastructures.
Likewise, entities or companies responsible for the management of transport infrastructures of State competence, as well as companies and operators in sectors other than electronic communications that are owners or managers of infrastructures in the public domain of the State, of the Autonomous Communities or of the Local Entities or beneficiaries of forced expropriations and that are capable of being used for the deployment of public electronic communications networks will facilitate access to such infrastructures. In this case, the aforementioned actors and telecommunication operators must reach an agreement, being able to present the case to the CNMC in case there is conflict in relation to the negotiation of access, which must issue a binding report.
These accesses must take place in order to deploy electronic communications networks and must not compromise the continuity and security of the provision of the services provided in these infrastructures by its owner.
The accesses are recognized in relation to road, rail, port, airport, water supply, sanitation, and the transport and distribution of gas and electricity. Access must be provided under conditions of equality, transparency and non-discrimination.
Infrastructures capable of being used for the deployment of public electronic communications networks shall mean tubes, posts, conduits, boxes, chambers, cabinets, and any associated resources that may be used to deploy and house electronic communications cables, equipment, devices, or any other similar resources necessary for the deployment and installation of the networks.
These obligations are imposed not only by the aforementioned Article 52 of the General Law on Telecommunications, but also by Directive 2014/61/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 on measures to reduce the cost of deploying high-speed electronic communications networks. This directive has been transposed into the Spanish legal system by Royal Decree 330/2016, of 9 September, on measures to reduce the cost of deploying high-speed electronic communications networks, currently in force and which regulates aspects related to deployments of public electronic communications networks such as access to infrastructures, sharing of them, knowledge of conditions of permits and licenses, as well as the creation of a website, single point of information, with centralized information on these matters.
When it comes to deploying telecommunications infrastructures in places of State public ownership, the Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service proceeds to carry out a public information procedure, at the request of the corresponding body, through the publication of an announcement in the section of public participation from their website.
This announcement describes the project that a certain operator is going to carry out, so that if other electronic communications operators are interested in sharing the infrastructure for the installation of their public electronic communications network in the same location, they can proceed to manifest such interest and, consequently, resize it appropriately.