A successful DMTforum!
The optimism of the sector, the need for collaboration from Over the Top (OTT) companies and the solidity of the infrastructure in Catalonia and Spain summarize the content of the DMTforum, held in the Auditorium of the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC), in Barcelona, with great public and content success, organized by the Center for Cable Studies (CECABLE) and Feceminte.
The DMTforum began with the request of Joan Bramon, president of Feceminte, to listen to professionals in telecommunications installations, an essential link in the development of deployments. Alejandra de Iturriaga, director of Telecommunications and the Audiovisual Sector of the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC), stressed the need to supervise movements in a strategic sector such as telecommunications and audiovisual, always hand in hand.
In the debate on “Keys to the future of the telecommunications operator sector”, Joan Francesc Fondevila, director of CECABLE and university professor, stressed that “formulas must be sought to confer value on the network and make it visible to the various social agents that are benefiting from the Broadband Society”, as well as underlining that “Catalonia and Spain are located in a privileged area in terms of accessibility and speed”. According to Fondevila, “it is about ensuring that bandwidth does not hinder the evolution of the content industry and cloud journalism, such as HbbTV, although the OTTs should cooperate with the operators to somehow finance the deployment of the infrastructure”. Likewise, the director of CECABLE highlighted the “silent but valuable task of the historical cable operators”, which have structured telecommunications in many parts of Catalonia and Spain.
Xavier Viladegut, co-founder and deployment director of Adamo, stated that “operators that have their own solid network are making progress, although in FTTH speed rates are limited and some companies request MPLS to guarantee the service”. For Ernest Pérez-Mas, founder, president and CEO of Parlem Telecom, territorially based operators “make the added value of proximity to the customer profitable”. He considers that the 5G frequencies should be reassigned and “regionalized”, as in other countries of the European Union, since, if not, the deployment slows down and many operators cannot participate in the auctions of the radioelectric space. Likewise, it demands that “OTTs pay a toll for the use of the network”.
Alberto Moreno, director of regulation at Telefónica Spain, highlighted the “high and enviable penetration of broadband in Spain”, as well as the challenge posed by 5G and “hyper-competitiveness in the provision of services”, reflected in 45,000 km. of ducts used by various operators. He also highlighted the growing trend towards bundling in the sector, including atypical products.
Finally, Jordi Bastardas, CEO of XTA (Xarxes de Telecomunicacions Alternatives), gave voice to the small operators, who pick up the baton of the historical cable. A company linked to Gran Penedès, stated its intention to bring high-speed Internet “to the maximum number of municipalities”. In this case, they use their own fiber optic network and also use the network of other operators in order to “shorten customer response times as much as possible”.
In the debate on “What challenges does connectivity pose?”, Lara Alonso, director of Institutional Relations, Projection and Organization of La Salle Campus Barcelona, considered that the synergy between physical networks and 5G “will mark the future of the sector”. Domingo Ruiz, founding partner and general director of ADTEL, emphasized the pace of deployment, the “need for organization” and a readjustment of the tenders. For Yolanda Heredia, sales manager for Spain and Portugal at Hispasat, the satellite is a door of hope for Internet access in rural areas in terms of a “hybrid solution”. Olga Díaz, head of the Legal Area of Localret, stressed that the effort to make the Internet connection reach the entire territory must be constant, in order to avoid the territorial gap, and called for more powers so that “the local area can face the challenges more effectively. For Alberto Gutiérrez, head of residential sales at Schneider Electric, there has been a recovery in the home connectivity market in recent months, and a “greater appreciation” by customers.
As an institutional conclusion, Cristina Campillo, Deputy Director General of Digital Infrastructures and Electronic Communications of the Generalitat de Catalunya, underlined the effort to provide the territory with solid broadband, either through fiber optics or through solutions by waves (“ a social right of the 21st century”), which has translated into 21% more coverage in municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants, 13% less concentration in the market, 7% less concentration by the dominant operator and a return on investment of 12.38%, that is, for every euro invested in the network, the net return is 12.38 euros.
In short, the DMTforum mobilized the business fabric, generated ideas about future challenges and projected a hopeful vision for a sector whose dynamism is constant and whose social and economic impact is essential for the future of the country.
