Movistar, MasOrange and Vodafone will soon be able to access new aid to deploy 5G in rural areas

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The rollout of 5G in rural areas of Spain continues apace and with good news, as the Government intends to launch the Unico Redes Activas II programme at the end of August. Movistar, MasOrange and Vodafone are, once again, expected to secure the majority of the funding.

It has only been a few months since the announcement of the first UNICO programme, which aims to expand 5G connectivity in rural areas, was announced at the end of June. Thanks to this initiative, the Government is working with the operators who apply to extend the availability of mobile networks much further. Now it is said that the second edition of the programme will be announced within a few days.

The program will have the same bases

One of the reasons why this initiative will be carried out so quickly is that the Ministry of Digital Transformation does not seem to have any intention of modifying the bases with which the first edition of the programme was launched. This will therefore speed up the process and resolve many of the problems that could have delayed the start of the second edition of UNICO Redes Activas.

A 5G connection tower drawn with a blue background

The fact that the bases remain the same is good news for operators, since, among other things, it means having the possibility of receiving funding in a shorter period of time. At the same time, these entities will not have to deal with adjustments or additional action plans with respect to those they already deployed at the time. Something that remains, for example, is the veto towards Chinese manufacturers, such as ZTE and Huawei, which is something to be taken into account by operators.

As reported by Expansión, where they have had access to this information from sources familiar with the matter, the second UNICO competition will have a budget of 90 million euros. It will be launched at the end of this month of August and will aim to continue extending the 5G network in municipalities with less than 10 thousand inhabitants. With this move, Spain tries to continue providing 5G support to most of the rural territory, something in which it is standing out even above many other European countries.

Less budget, same objectives

One of the additional reasons for seeing this second UNICO programme arrive in such a short time frame is probably the budget. The 90 million euros of this edition, coming from the European NextGen funds, are a complement to the more than 500 million that were delivered in the first programme. Therefore, while it is a great opportunity for operators, it is obvious that the figures are far behind the previous ones.

It is logical that this is a smaller amount, since part of the 90 million is what was left over from the more than 500 million from the first edition. The Government, therefore, would have taken advantage of the opportunity to continue with the programme and thus ensure that the funds are used to the maximum to help in the expansion of these networks.

A person using a mobile phone with both hands

Once again, Movistar is expected to be the operator that receives the largest share of the aid. In the first edition of the program, it obtained 59% of the aid with 298 million euros. MasOrange, combining what was obtained by Orange (115 million) and MásMóvil (28 million), was placed in second position with 143 million euros. And, in third place, Vodafone signed a more modest, but no less important, amount of 66 million. The three operators are expected to be the ones, in this new call for proposals, to win the largest share of the aid and thus be able to have more budget to continue deploying 5G networks in rural areas.

These grants will be used to cover 90% of the cost of deploying 5G networks in rural areas that need them, usually in the 3.5 GHz and 700 MHz bands. As we have indicated, these will be towns with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants and, in some cases, municipalities with fewer than 5,000. In this second case, these will be locations where operators will be responsible for deploying fibre to the tower. Of course, the mission is to bring 5G to those areas that need it and which, in the locations assigned in the first call, were left out.

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