According to data from the National Markets and Competition Commission, the CNMC, fiber optic to the home (FTTH) is already the most used way to access the Internet in Spanish municipalities with more than 1,000 inhabitants. All thanks to the growth of these connections in this type of population, since in 2020, 81% of the 3.5 million FTTH fiber optic accesses made in Spain were in towns with more than a thousand inhabitants.
Meanwhile, in populations with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, the majority way to access the Internet from home continues to be xDSL connections. In Madrid, the percentage of active FTTH accesses is 85.5%, while in Barcelona it is 86.3%.
At the same time, the hiring of FTTH accesses continues to increase. In December of last year, active FTTH accesses reached 11.17 million, representing an increase of 11.6% compared to the same month in 2019, when there were 10 million accesses of this type. Currently, the number of fiber optic lines is already 12.5 million, 38% of all fixed network connections.
Regarding the populations of more than 10,000 inhabitants, the FTTH connections exceeded 71.5% of total broadband accesses, a percentage very close to the national average, which is 72.4%. However, fiber optic penetration is lower when the number of inhabitants of a locality is lower. This means that while in Barcelona, for example, there are 37.3 fiber optic lines for every 100 inhabitants, in municipalities with between 5,000 and 10,000 inhabitants this figure drops above 50%: 17.6 fiber optic lines for every 100 inhabitants.
On the other hand, in 2020 there was a notable emergence of alternative operators in the market, which were the ones that installed 75% of the new accesses. Especially in towns with less than 50,000 inhabitants. Furthermore, the percentage of NGA accesses of these alternative operators was 56.1% in Barcelona and 54% in Madrid.
