One of the principles of the General Telecommunications Act is to promote efficient investment in infrastructure by including, where appropriate, infrastructure-based competition, encouraging innovation and taking due account of the risks incurred by investment firms.
To achieve such efficiency, co-location or sharing of elements of public electronic communications networks and associated resources may be encouraged.
In order to promote the sharing of both public and private property, the General Telecommunications Law proposes operators to make voluntary agreements between themselves or with the help of the public administrations themselves affected by the deployment. In the latter case, the promotion of such measures is very positive, especially when the City Council is the Public Administration involved.
However, such promotion is not synonymous with the fact that the aforementioned Public Administrations must establish sharing or shared location obligations for telecommunication operators. However, they can identify reasons on which sharing or co-location obligations could be imposed, in order to request a start of the sharing or co-location obligation procedure to the General Secretariat for Telecommunications and Audiovisual Communication Services.
The reasons that could motivate the establishment of sharing obligations or shared location, such as:
- Environment
- Public health
- Public safety
- Urban and territorial planning
Once a Public Administration has identified these cases, it can call on the General Secretariat for Telecommunications and Management of Audiovisual Communication Services in a motivated manner to initiate a sharing obligation or shared location procedure for electronic communications network infrastructures. This procedure must still be regulated by Royal Decree, in which those situations under which it is appropriate to impose these conditions will be identified.