The industry warns that the new era of connectivity, driven by advanced 5G and very high capacity networks, demands more agile and consistent regulation, as well as a sustained and coordinated investment effort.

 

Madrid, November 25, 2025 – The conference “Spain’s Connected Future: Innovation, Regulation and Health”, organized by DigitalES and COIT with the collaboration of CCARS, brought together today at the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures the main players in the sector to discuss the present and future of connectivity, regulatory innovation and the relationship between technology and health, with the aim of analyzing the challenges and opportunities posed by connectivity in Spain.

The conference was inaugurated by Miguel Sánchez Galindo, CEO of DigitalES, and Marta Balenciaga, Dean-President of COIT, who highlighted the essential role of telecommunications as a driver of the country’s progress. “Telecommunications are the invisible infrastructure that makes progress visible. And behind every network, every signal, every connection, there are people: researchers, technicians, engineers, operators and public officials committed to improving the lives of others,” said Balenciaga. Both agreed on the importance of addressing the current and future challenges of network deployment in Spain, with special attention to regulatory developments and the vision of all the agents involved.

Matías González, Secretary General of Telecommunications, underscored the government’s commitment to an inclusive and sustainable deployment of digital infrastructures, with the aim of bringing connectivity “to all the places where it has not yet reached”, taking into account the territorial complexity and the cases still pending.

The Secretary General identified five strategic priorities for the coming years:

1. Culminate deployment with a territorial and inclusive vision, working together with the sector to resolve particular cases and ensure that no territory is left behind.
2. Ensure the economic profitability of networks, especially in 5G, by driving real use cases that generate revenue and industrial value.
3. Strengthening the security and resilience of infrastructures, in a complex geopolitical context and with increasingly exposed networks. He stressed the importance of cybersecurity and infrastructures capable of operating even in extreme situations, in order to maintain business and social confidence.
4. Maintain social confidence in the use of the radio spectrum, a task he attributed to scientific rigor and the work of CCARS. He recalled that the limits are based on international standards and that measurements in Spain are systematically below these thresholds, warning against populist discourses.
5. Prepare for the technological future, from AI to quantum computing or the aerospace revolution. He acknowledged that regulation must adapt with more agility to the pace of the sector and stressed the importance of a Digital Networks Act (DNA) that has real impact, encourages investment and facilitates partnerships in a heterogeneous European market.

As immediate priorities, he stressed the need to continue facilitating deployments and to reinforce the idea that “the connected future is not built by the administration or the sector in isolation”, but through continuous dialogue and the recognition of telecommunications as a strategic sector for the country.

CONNECTIVITY, KEY TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

The CEO of DigitalES, Miguel Sánchez Galindo, presented a preview of the Report on the Future of Connectivity in Spain, which emphasizes the need for solid, resilient and prepared digital infrastructures to support emerging technologies that will mark the next decade, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain or the Internet of Things. The report analyzes the evolution of connectivity in the next 3 to 5 years and the technological requirements needed to drive a competitive digital model.

Sánchez Galindo recalled that “the competitiveness of the EU will depend on the digitalization of all sectors”, and that to take full advantage of its benefits it is essential to have state-of-the-art networks and greater digital skills.

In this regard, he stressed that Spain maintains a good level of 5G SA coverage -around 56%, above the European average-, although still behind markets such as the United States, China or India, where it exceeds 90%. According to data from the European Commission, the investment needs in digital infrastructure to achieve the 2030 objectives amount to 200,000 million euros, of which “Spain should mobilize between 20,000 and 35,000 million,” said the head of DigitalES.

According to the CEO, the country now faces the challenge of network densification, which is essential to absorb the increase in traffic and enable new digital services. This new stage will require “maintaining a sustained pace of investment and moving towards real administrative simplification, especially in local and regional administrations, to reduce delays and facilitate the installation of new sites and small cells”.

Finally, he argued that advanced connectivity is no longer measured solely by speed, but by ultra-low latency, security by design, availability and resilience. In this context, he insisted on the urgency of accelerating deployments, harmonizing spectrum costs and adjusting regulatory frameworks to the speed of technological progress.

NETWORK DEPLOYMENT IN STRATEGIC SECTORS

The discussion addressed the improvement of authorization processes to accelerate the deployment of networks in strategic environments: roads, ports and general deployment in national territory.

Enrique Pérez Rodríguez-Carmona, Deputy Director General of Planning and Operation of the General Directorate of Roads; Elena Galindo, Deputy Director General of Telecommunications Operators and DigitalES Infrastructures; and Jaime Luezas, Head of the Port Community Services Area of Puertos del Estado, spoke about simplification and administrative coordination.

The General Directorate of Roads stressed the importance of harmonizing technical criteria between demarcations and digitizing procedures, in order to reduce deadlines and ensure that deployments are carried out while minimizing the impact on traffic and maintaining road safety. For its part, Puertos del Estado focused on the operational uniqueness of port environments, where security, logistics and permanent activity requirements coexist. Examples of good practices were presented in several Spanish ports that have advanced towards early coordination models between operators and port authorities to speed up deployments.

The Secretariat of State for Telecommunications emphasized that the Single Information Point (PIU) will be an essential tool for simplifying procedures and improving the information available to operators, especially in projects that require inter-administrative coordination. It was also announced that the regulatory priorities will be focused on the development of the Gigabit Regulation, with special attention to the harmonization of procedures and the reduction of administrative burdens that continue to hinder deployments in multiple territories.

Deputy Director Elena Galindo pointed out that Spain has reached very high levels of connectivity, and the arrival of the Gigabit Regulation “catches us with our homework already done”, after years of strong deployment by all operators. Specific challenges remain, such as the 2% of households without fixed broadband coverage, and the need to measure 5G not only in terms of coverage – already over 90% – but also in terms of quality and latency parameters.

 

5G DEPLOYMENT CHALLENGES, INVESTMENTS AND REGULATORY FRAMEWORK

Representatives of telecommunications operators such as Digi, MasOrange, Onivia and Telefónica, together with infrastructure providers -American Tower España, Cellnex España, TOTEM España and Vantage Towers-, and technology manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei España and ZTE, shared their views on the challenges of network deployment, the evolution of the regulatory framework and the new opportunities offered by connectivity in strategic sectors.

The infrastructure companies agreed that Spain starts from a position of European leadership in connectivity -both in fiber and 5G- thanks to the investment effort and the strong cooperation between operators, manufacturers and infrastructure companies. However, they stressed that the new technological cycle requires facing more complex challenges: advancing in the deployment of 5G SA (5G Standalone is the complete and “pure” version of 5G, because it operates over a 100% 5G network), densifying networks in urban environments, roads and critical areas, and addressing the gaps that still persist in mobile and fixed broadband.

The debate highlighted that the exponential growth of traffic, driven especially by artificial intelligence, requires networks with much greater capacity, efficiency and resilience. In this sense, AI will be key not only as a traffic generator, but also as a tool to optimize network management, reduce energy consumption and enable the prioritization of critical communications, giving way to a future of more autonomous networks, capable of self-diagnosing and self-optimizing in real time.

The representatives of the companies in the sector recalled that densification will be one of the great challenges of the next five years and that it will require administrative agility, especially at the municipal level, as well as closer coordination with the energy sector to guarantee power and connections at new sites. They stressed the need for regulation to facilitate the installation of small cells and speed up local permits.

On the economic front, it was highlighted that, after completing the largest fiber deployment in Europe, the next challenge for Spain is to make these networks profitable and maximize efficiency, where infrastructure sharing and the search for economies of scale will be fundamental. It was noted that the structure of the European market remains fragmented and that consolidation of the sector could help to strengthen investment capacity.

In regulatory matters, a stable, coherent and predictable framework was called for in all administrations, with less bureaucracy, more territorial alignment and a homogeneous application of the General Telecommunications Law. The contribution of the UNICO 5G Active Networks program, which has made it possible to bring coverage to areas where private deployment was not viable, was valued.

At the European level, the companies emphasized that Spain is in a solid position for the future Digital Networks Act (DNA), from which clear rules of the game, modernization of the infrastructure framework and incentives to invest in more secure networks are expected. Special emphasis was placed on addressing the asymmetry between operators and large digital platforms, which account for more than 50% of traffic without contributing proportionally to costs. Operators demand that the DNA recognizes the value of networks and infrastructures, and that it includes obligations for negotiation and redistribution of costs.