Spanish government launches new phase of funding for rural 5G Standalone

The Spanish government opened the latest phase of its €1 billion funding project aimed at rolling out 5G Standalone (SA) to rural areas across the country to reduce the digital divide between urban and rural areas, as almost a fifth of the country’s population live in the rural areas. 

In this new phase, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation (MINECO) invited applicants to apply for a share of €544 million of funding with less than 10,000 people. The funds will be allocated for active and passive infrastructure, and all interested parties have until the end of the month to apply.

María González Veracruz, the secretary of state for telecommunications and digital infrastructure, said in a translated statement, “Once we have closed the digital gap in fixed connectivity and we are leading the deployment of fiber in Europe as pointed out in the Digital Decade Report, in Spain we are also going to continue to be at the forefront in this technology, which changes the mobile paradigm and generates a great opportunity in the Internet of Things, so that it reaches all provinces.”