It has long been recognized that public investment in rural and small towns is an engine of economic and social development. If this is appropriate for other infrastructure (roads, parking facilities, airports), why not for telecommunications infrastructure? This was the logic behind the decision by the Principality of Asturias to improve communications infrastructure in the mining valleys. The goal was to give the rural population access to the same services offered in larger cities and to eliminate the “digital divide.”.
General Information:
Project Promoter:
Government of the Principality of Asturias
Project Developer:
GITPA (100% owned by the Government of the Principality of Asturias)
Location: Principality of Asturias, Spain
Project: ASTURCÓN Network
Network Status: Operational
The new access network would be open to all service providers and managed by a public operator. This business model was chosen by local authorities because they wanted to separate infrastructure from services: public investment “builds the roads” and private investment can then “add the cars.” This approach has been approved by the European Union, as it does not distort markets.
One reason for the lack of investment by commercial telecommunications providers was the mountainous geography of the Asturias region. The populations in the mining valleys were small and spread out, and many telephone lines were too long to support ADSL technology. Finding a solution to this technological challenge ultimately resulted in the creation of the first FTTH network in Spain.
The initial budget was €18.7 million, which included the creation of the public operator, Public Telecommunications Infrastructure Management of the Principality of Asturias (GITPA). Sixty percent of the funding came from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and 40% from a national fund for the regeneration of former mining communities. The original scope of the project was to cover approximately 31,000 homes in towns with more than 1,000 inhabitants and with one or no broadband access network. The first phase of implementation reached 21 communities in the Nalón, Caudal, and Narcea mining basins between 2005 and 2007.
The network has been expanded several times when new funding sources have become available. The “Llanes, Digital Paradise” project, under the AVANZA National Plan, extended the network to approximately 1,500 homes in Llanes in 2007. In 2008, through the ACEBA Regional Fund, a significant expansion took place, reaching 19 more communities over a three-year period—a total of nearly 19,000 additional homes. With the expansion to four villages with populations between 500 and 1,000, completed in March 2011, the ASTURCÓN network now serves 45 municipalities, representing approximately 9.5% of all homes in Asturias.
Deployment and Adoption
Technology / Architecture: GPON with 1/32 split.
Implementation Method:
Cable and conduit on building facades, utilizing public infrastructure such as traffic lights or street lighting conduits where possible.
Network Size:
~51,951 premises approved across 15 industrial parks.
Adoption: 10,600 customers (end of 2011).
Penetration is approximately 40% in the original project area of the mining valleys. Adoption is lower in coastal towns, where there are many vacation homes.
Has the Principality of Asturias achieved its objectives? Definitely yes, affirms Juan Manuel Rodríguez, General Director of GITPA. Public investment has eradicated the digital divide in the region and created a new and attractive business model for operators. “This new telecommunications model, based on infrastructure sharing, is necessary to meet demand outside of major cities,” he explained. “There are real opportunities for operators to deploy new services using this business model, since they have low investment requirements and it drastically reduces their time to market.”
The network has been designed as a single infrastructure operated by GITPA, which provides wholesale services to multiple retail service providers. GITPA offers a single common interconnection point for the entire network, located near the railway infrastructure (commonly used by telecommunications operators in Spain to expand their networks), where it also provides site facilities.
Service providers purchase Layer 2 Ethernet services between the interconnection point and the optical network terminal on the customer's property.
Business Case
Total Investment: 56.7 million Euros.
Operating and Maintenance Costs (2011): 656,000 Euros.
Revenue (2011): 1.9 million Euros.
To make it easier for new service providers to engage with the public operator, the operator's processes were designed to resemble Telefónica's offering of wholesale broadband services based on local loop unbundling. GITPA also developed a high-quality customer service system, based on the TeleManagement Forum e-TOM standard, to provide systems and support for customer service and fault management.
Operators and GITPA interact through a website, www.gitpa.es, which provides direct access to a wide range of functions, such as network coverage, status requests for all services, incident logs, and more. Although it has taken some time to gain traction, there are now three service providers on the network, including the French operator, Orange, which launched its services in June 2011.
Services for the end user
Three operators offer services (December 2011):
Telecable: www.telecable.es> 40 RF TV channels, voice (POTS), and Internet: 15, 70, 100 Mbps download and from 1.2 to 1.5 Mbps
Adamo: www.adamo.es 100/100Mbps High-speed Internet and VoIP
Orange: www.orange.es 100/100Mbps High-speed Internet, VoIP and the TV package with high-definition channels.
The main objective – using public funds to boost economic development – has also been achieved, Mr. Rodríguez commented. The CTIC Foundation of Asturias estimates that public investment in communications infrastructure has added €189 million to the GVA (Gross Value Added) in Asturias, equivalent to 0.9% of Asturias' GVA in 2009.
The availability of high-speed internet of up to 100 Gbps has attracted a large number of companies to the region, such as El Corte Inglés.
Written in December 2011
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