Spain has just changed the fiber optic rules after 25 years. The decision benefits a company: Telefónica

The National Markets and Competition Commission He has decided to completely free Telefónica of its obligation to share the fiber optic network with other operators. A measure that ends almost three decades of state supervision initiated after the privatization of 1999.

Why is it important. Telefónica thus recovers the total autonomy about its infrastructure of 30.8 million houses covered. You can freely decide who your network shares, at what price and under what conditions, without prior regulatory supervision.

The context. Since the privatization of Telefónica at the end of the last century, the State imposed the obligation to rent its network to competitors to promote competition.

What began with Gigaadsl in 1999 evolved until NEBA in 2012forcing the operator to initially share 100% of its network, reduced to 25% since 2016.

What has happened. The CNMC Council approved on July 29 eliminated these restrictions for two key reasons:

1. The Masorange fusion has created a competitor that surpasses Telefónica in number of clients.
2. The broadband market has greater competition with new independent wholesalers and more fiber deployments.

In detail. The resolution will enter into force in February 2026, giving six months to the operators that NEBA use to renegotiate agreements or migrate customers to other networks.

Telefónica will keep only The framework obligation of renting physical infrastructure such as arches and pipes.

And now what. On the one hand, Telefónica will gain commercial agility by not needing prior approval of the CNMC for new offers or technical changes.

On the other hand, its competitors will lose the advantage of knowing in advance the strategies of the operator, which until now had to pass the regulatory “replicability” filter.

The big question. How will you use this new freedom to compete. The operator can now launch offers without notifying their rivals or waiting for regulatory approval, just when it must present their new strategy – that of The era with Murtra in command– Before ending 2025.

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