Hispasat plans to offer broadband internet to “all towns” in Spain “this year”, with speeds of 100 mbps (megabits per second) and at 35 euros, after being the only “provisional” winner of a connection service in rural areas, which is expected to be raised to “definitive”.
The idea is to offer this service at a speed of 100 Megabits per second (mgbs), a speed that will increase to 200 in 2024, according to what the CEO of Hispasat, Miguel Ángel Panduro, has advanced to EFE, who has referred to the award of this service by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, and which will allow Spain to get ahead of the European Digital Agenda by two years, which stipulated it for 2025.
This service will be priced at 35 euros per month for users. Hispasat will offer wholesale service offers to national, regional and local operators. “We have agreements with 15 companies” for this, he said.
The operator, owned almost 90% by Redeia, is in a position to offer this service “tomorrow,” since one of the advantages of satellites is that they offer universal coverage, which means that all homes in Spain can have their services and also “immediately”.
Hispasat has been the only winner in provisional resolution for 76.3 million euros for the management of aid from a program (UNICO) to offer connectivity services at affordable prices to rural areas without coverage. It is a service for fixed communication, which is offered in all areas of Spain and provides an affordable service of at least 100 Mbps until December 31, 2027.
The aid that will be granted to Hispasat will be distributed in 40.3 million euros for the configuration of the service and the establishment of a platform with network resources, and 36 million to cover the registration of the end user, according to Ministry sources.
Broadband to a standard mobile: a dream
Panduro, who has offered an interview with EFE in the framework of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, already closed and where Hispasat has had an exhibitor, has been asked about the Vodafone and ATS pilot project to offer coverage 4G/5G broadband via satellite through standard phones, without the need for an antenna or to modify the device.
In his opinion, this “is more a wish than a reality.” “The dream of any of us (satellite operators) is to go directly to mobile,” she said. However, he sees several problems in this project, one of them being to solve regulatory problems. Panduro does not see it as “a reality that solves the problems of the digital divide in Spain today.”
However, he likes this type of initiative because they place space as something important for what will be the communications of the future. If he were on the side of the operators, he “would start looking more into space than has been done in recent years.”
