The Government finalises the aid with which 5G will be deployed in rural municipalities

The Official State Gazette has published the order of bases for the call for 5G Active Networks aid from the UNICO program, which will have a budget of more than 500 million euro to deploy the necessary equipment in municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants for 5G services.

The Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures, María González Veracruz, has informed that they are pioneering aid in Europe with which the Government of Spain wants to avoid the appearance of a territorial gap in the implementation of 5G. They pursue the objective of guaranteeing territorial cohesion through universal connectivity in Spain to this technology that will mark all kinds of economic and social trends in the coming years.

The 5G Active Networks grants are part of the different UNICO programs that the Government of Spain is developing through the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures. Some aid with which equal opportunities in connectivity are being provided as a new right of citizenship regardless of the place where they reside or carry out their economic activity.

To achieve the deployment of 5G in rural areas, these aids are aimed at operators with rights to use frequencies in the 5G bands, to encourage them to deploy this technology also in smaller municipalities, and also Temporary Business Unions (UTEs) among which are some operators with the required characteristics.

Among the different technical aspects included in the regulatory bases of these aids is the provision of necessary active and passive equipment and, where appropriate, additional infrastructure such as “backhaul”, reinforcement of masts or energy, necessary for the provision of 5G services.

All these measures will allow the citizens of these rural environments to deepen the digital transformation of economic sectors such as agriculture, rural tourism, surveillance of critical infrastructures such as dams and power plants, telemedicine or tele-education, etc.

In the evaluation criteria, it assesses the amount of population covered and the kilometres of road, as well as the construction of new sites. In addition, the projects must be completed before June 30, 2025.

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