Article
Why Spain’s telecom operators compete for customers and share fiber networks
Spain has one of the most advanced FTTH markets in Europe. Behind its high fiber penetration lies a dense web of agreements between operators, wholesale providers, and open-access networks that increasingly rely on one another to extend coverage and improve network economics.
How Spain built one of Europe’s most interconnected FTTH markets
More than nine out of ten Spanish households covered by FTTH are connected through fiber. According to the FTTH Council Europe’s FTTH/B Market Panorama (September 2025), Spain’s FTTH adoption rate has reached 93.3%.
Only Iceland (99.3%) ranks higher, while Spain remains well above the average across the 39 European markets analyzed (54.4%). Coverage is equally impressive: 96.5% of Spanish households have access to at least one FTTH network, surpassed only by Malta (100%) and Romania (97%).
Behind these figures lies a market that has moved beyond the point where competition could be sustained solely through proprietary network deployment. In our FTTH Ecosystem Relationship Map for Spain, we identified 18 market players and 37 wholesale, open-access, and retail agreements that shape connectivity across the country.
CNMC data for 2025 illustrates the scale of this phenomenon: 79.4 million FTTH ports deployed to serve 17.9 million homes and businesses, equivalent to more than four deployed ports per connected premise.
This apparent redundancy is not a market inefficiency. Rather, it reflects a telecom ecosystem operating under a logic of coopetition, where companies compete and collaborate simultaneously.
Why owning the network is no longer enough
That model worked when network coverage itself was a key competitive advantage. Today, however, economic, regulatory, and financial forces have made it increasingly difficult to sustain.
The first is economic. The marginal cost of expanding fiber into less densely populated areas has risen significantly, reducing returns on each additional household passed.
The second is regulatory. For years, Spain’s regulatory framework encouraged service-based competition and functional separation.
The third is financial. Infrastructure investors with long investment horizons have transformed the economics of fiber. Networks are no longer monetized exclusively through retail customers but increasingly as neutral infrastructure assets.
The result is a market where multiple wholesale access models coexist, supported by increasingly standardized SLAs that reduce the operational differences between owned and third-party networks.
The growing role of open-access fiber platforms
Companies such as Onivia, Bluevía, Rede Aberta, and Adamo have moved beyond the role of traditional wholesale providers to become structural components of Spain’s FTTH market.
Their value is no longer measured only by fiber kilometers or premises passed. Instead, it comes from their ability to orchestrate multi-operator inventories, standardize network data, and lower barriers to entry for regional ISPs.
These platforms enable operators such as DIGI, AVATEL, and Excom to expand nationwide coverage without deploying additional fiber infrastructure.
For larger incumbents, they provide a way to monetize underutilized network assets.
Why competitors are leasing fiber to each other
Perhaps the most revealing insight from the ecosystem map is not that smaller operators lease infrastructure from larger players. It is that integrated operators lease network segments from one another.
This bidirectional model helps operators:
Increase redundancy
Optimize network routes
Balance infrastructure utilization
Leverage shared rural backhaul and feeder networks
At this stage, coopetition is no longer just a commercial arrangement. It has become an operational tool for improving resilience, fault management, and maintenance efficiency.
In Spain’s FTTH market, competing effectively increasingly requires collaborating with competitors.
What the FTTH ecosystem reveals about the next wave of consolidation
The structure of today’s market already points toward a new phase of consolidation, initially within infrastructure and potentially later within services.
Several signals stand out.
First, the growing interdependence among mid-sized operators. Companies such as AVATEL, Adamo, and DIGI rely on multiple third parties to achieve nationwide coverage.
Second, value is gradually shifting back toward the customer layer, after years in which infrastructure captured most of the sector’s valuation growth.
Third, wholesale efficiency is becoming more important than retail differentiation in driving value creation.
Finally, infrastructure investors continue to act as consolidation catalysts, favoring larger fiber platforms with greater scale and more stable returns.
Where Spain’s fiber market may be heading next
The current level of interconnection suggests that Spain’s FTTH market may follow a trajectory similar to the one previously experienced by the mobile sector.
The coexistence of overlapping networks and comparable operating models points toward two or three major fiber platforms emerging over time.
At the same time, specialized regional and niche operators are likely to remain part of the market.
The next phase could be triggered by a merger between open-access platforms, an infrastructure-backed acquisition, a retail-led integration strategy, or a large-scale wholesale agreement.
The industry is approaching a point where the next strategic moves will shape the competitive balance of Spain’s FTTH market for years to come.
