• In recent years, the gap between coverage in rural and urban areas has more than halved, from 42 percentage points in 2018 to just 18 in 2022.
• According to data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, 5G coverage in rural areas will reach 89.5% by 2025.
• As of June 2022, 72% of rural homes had access to ultra-fast coverage of at least 100 Mbps.

The long-awaited repopulation of rural areas, which will prevent a demographic imbalance, currently depends on multiple factors, including internet connectivity, enabling remote work options and the call for so-called "digital nomads." Likewise, good internet coverage guarantees rural residents full internet access to meet the growing digitalization of services.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation has published the data from the 2022 Broadband Coverage Report ,   which provides an overview of progress in fixed and mobile connectivity in Spain as of June 30, 2022. According to this report, the connectivity gap between urban and rural areas is narrowing due to the deployment of ultra-fast fixed network infrastructure through the UNICO Banda Ancha program . Thus, the gap between coverage in rural and urban areas has been reduced by more than half, from 42 percentage points in 2018 to just 18 in 2022, bringing the goal of completely closing the digital divide by 2025 closer.

Figures

The deployment of fiber optics has accelerated significantly in the last two years thanks to the support of the Next Generation EU funds and the Recovery Plan . The Plan aims to provide 100% of the population with ultra-fast broadband connections by 2025. Meanwhile, the figures are as follows:

• As of June 2022, 72% of households in rural areas had access to networks with at least 100 Mbps.
• In recent years, the gap (the difference between rural and total coverage) has more than halved, from 42 percentage points in 2018 to just 18 in 2022, bringing the goal of closing the digital divide completely by 2025 closer.
• According to the report, 5G coverage in rural areas will reach 89.5% by 2025, a 50-point increase compared to 38% in 2018.
• Nationwide, 64% of Spanish homes in rural areas will have access to broadband networks with a download speed of 1 Gigabit by June 2022.
• Over the past year, the push for 5G has been felt in priority bands (“New Radio”), doubling coverage in rural areas by 50.52% .

For the preparation of the report, the January 2022 land registry data was used as a source of information, rather than the estimates from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), as has been the case until now. This has allowed for a more accurate estimate of the number of homes in Spain, which exceed 26 million.