The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has pointed out that, although the digital divide between territories has narrowed in recent years, notable differences still remain between urban and rural areas, according to a study by the body headed by Cani Fernández.
Competencia has released its first biennial report on the quality of telecommunications services in rural areas, where it contrasts the user experience in municipalities with low population density with that of the rest of the country, in compliance with article 69 of the General Telecommunications Law.
The analysis confirms that, as the number of inhabitants decreases, the implementation of next-generation technologies is reduced, available speeds fall, and dependence on alternative solutions increases, with very marked differences in fixed broadband speeds.
Regarding fixed connection, data points to a wide availability of broadband throughout the territory, although with significant gaps. Almost 99% of urban households have access to fixed broadband, compared to 78% in rural areas.
Fiber optic (FTTH) remains the main technology in both cities (90.1%) and rural areas (88.1%), but its deployment falls sharply in municipalities with fewer than 100 inhabitants, where users depend more heavily on mobile network access, "WiFi", or satellite.
The majority of connections exceed 100 Mb/s in both environments (96.8% in urban versus 88.4% in rural), while speeds above 1 Gb/s are more established in urban areas (35.4%) than in rural ones (26.6%).
Likewise, the deadline to activate a new connection tends to lengthen in small municipalities: the average stands at 24 days in towns with fewer than 100 inhabitants, compared to about 7 days in large cities.
VERY HIGH COVERAGE THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY
Regarding mobile services, the report highlights that coverage reaches very high levels in practically the entire national territory: 94% of rural municipalities have signals from three mobile networks and 4G is almost completely extended.
However, the deployment of 5G does present clear differences: 96% of urban municipalities have at least one 5G network, compared to 82.2% of rural ones. Only 15.4% of rural towns have three 5G networks, compared to 49.7% of urban municipalities.
The study also detects a direct relationship between the size of the municipality and download and upload speeds: these decrease as the population goes down. However, in some cases, rural municipalities obtain better results than urban ones of similar size.
GOOD USER EXPERIENCE THROUGHOUT THE TERRITORY
Despite the differences detected in fixed and mobile connectivity, the document concludes that the quality of the services is adequate for usual uses in both environments. Thus, Internet browsing, video "streaming" (like YouTube or RTVE Play) and calls are made without problems, and the video playback quality is comparable in urban and rural areas.
The report has been prepared following the methodology approved by the CNMC in 2024, based on information submitted by more than 300 operators, field measurements in almost 1,000 municipalities, data from more than 2.4 million users, and surveys from the Household Competition Panel.
Precisely, the results of the Household Panel point to a high level of satisfaction in both rural and urban areas. Although rural areas register slightly more intermediate or less favorable ratings, the differences are not significant.