The Official State Gazette has published the call for aid launched by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation to deploy the necessary equipment for 5G services in municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants. Through this call UNICO 5G Active Networks, the Government continues its commitment to digitally structuring Spain, now universalising the mobile connectivity of this disruptive technology also in population centres smaller than large cities.
This aid program, financed with European Next Generation EU funds within the framework of the Recovery Plan and the Digital Spain 2026 agenda, involves an investment of 7.1 million euros for the provision of the necessary active and passive equipment and, where appropriate, additional backhaul infrastructure to facilitate the deployment of 5G in the municipalities of the Balearic Islands of less than 10,000 inhabitants, as reported by the Government Delegation in a press release.
These resources are in addition to the 1.9 million euros awarded by the Ministry -with the resolution of UNICO 5G Backhaul- to several operators for to equip existing mobile towers with optical fiber in municipalities of the Balearic Islands with less than 5,000 inhabitants, helping to avoid the appearance of a territorial gap in the implementation of this technology by favoring its deployment in smaller municipalities.
The Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures, María González Veracruz, has stressed that with this “pioneering program in Europethe government continues to promote the deployment of this technology, which opens up new possibilities for the economic and social development of the country, furthering the strategy of promoting territorial cohesion and generating opportunities and quality employment”.
The paradigm shift will allow in small municipalities, for example, the sensorization of different crops in the agri-food sector for the optimization of production, the development of tourism and cultural activities applying new realities, the improvement of public services with real-time operations or remote care for health emergencies or emergencies, as well as the precision for the collection of garbage or recycling with sensors in the containers to adapt it to the demand of the use.
The rules governing the call specify that these grants may be used for the provision of the necessary active and passive equipment and, where appropriate, additional infrastructure such as “backhaul”, mast reinforcement or power, necessary for the provision of 5G stand alone services, 5G with all its functionalities, technically built on a new network core independent of 4G technology, as well as on the frequencies in pioneering 5G bands.
Applications to participate in the program can be submitted until October 31 at 1 p.m. at the electronic registry of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation.
Accelerating 5G deployment
With the launch of this call, and the already resolved UNICO 5G Redes Backhaul program, to bring fiber optics to the antennas, the Government has invested more than 1,000 million euros throughout the territory to promote the deployment of 5G infrastructure, in collaboration with the private sector, in municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants.
The subsidies included in this call are complementary to other actions being carried out under the umbrella of the UNICO program, which is being developed by the Government of Spain through the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure.
5G technology promotion strategy
The strategy to promote 5G technology, whose main purpose is to lead the deployment of 5G in Europe, is one of the axes of the Digital Spain Agenda. The Government’s intention is that the country has this disruptive technology to be able to develop the capabilities that 5G will allow as an economic and social transformer, as pointed out by the Government Delegation.
With this objective in mind, programs have been launched to cover all phases of the development of these new mobile communication technologies in Spain. The aid programs cover the deployment of infrastructures (UNICO 5G Backhaul and UNICO 5G ACTIVAS), the development of pilot projects – through Red.es – and use cases, the integration of the technology in industrial value chains (UNICO 5G Sectorial) and basic research and innovation in the next technological generations (UNICO I D 5G Advanced and 6G).
Spain has been among the first countries in the European Union to complete the assignment of the entire 5G spectrum, in addition to having dedicated 450 MHz for self-provisioning and industrial use. Spectrum caps have also been increased to allow operators to better manage traffic increases.
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