Strategic plan for ultra-fast broadband in the Basque Country

Spain

The Basque Government, in order to fulfil the objectives established by the European Commision in the Digital Agenda for Europe under its Europe 2020 strategy, has undertaken the preparation of the Strategic Plan for ultra-fast broadband in the Basque Country, under the management of the IDOM technological consultancy team.

Summary of the services
The Basque Government, from the guidelines set out oriented to fulfil the objectives established in the Digital Agenda for Europe from the European Commission under its Europe 2020 strategy, has undertaken the elaboration of the Strategic Plan of ultra-fast broadband in the Basque Country, which has been requested to IDOM technological consultancy team.

For the development of the plan, IDOM has done a deep analysis referred to the situation of advanced broadband services in the Basque Country (offer of telecommunications services in the Basque country, unattended demand, needs identified from the public administration).

Outcomes

• Study of the State of broadband communications and ultrafast broadband communications in the Basque Country
• Ultrafast Broadband Strategic Plan for the Basque Country.
• Roadmap for the development of an investment vehicle using a PPP model to implement the action 1 of the Ultrafast Broadband Plan.
• Information for the EU DG CONNECT in order to let them know about the Basque Government´s action.
• Technical information about the scope and the layout of the fibre network to be deployed.

Main Challenges
Among the main challenges that IDOM has faced in this work is the approach of a new initiative of public-private partnership in the field of telecommunications.

Furthermore, the management and seeking consensus between four competing companies seeking agreements and sharing of infrastructure that resulted in the improvement of the deployment of ultra-fast networks in the Basque country.

Lessons Learned
The main lesson that IDOM has learned in this service is the great difficulties that telco operators raise when the model of competence is based on infrastructure, especially when it comes to operators with uneven degree of development of the network. This is very representative on operators with significant market position (SMP).

Telecommunications