Broadband implementation in the province of Lleida

During a lot of years, great efforts have been carried out to provide this Catalan region with great connection facilities in the Broadband Society. During the first years of the 21st century, broadband arrived to Catalunya, but often in a non-regular way. For this reason, in 2003, during the rise of Internet and communication technologies, the local government, the Generalitat of Catalonia, launched the program ‘Catalunya Connecta’. 

A plan that intended to provide access to the new communication technologies - including broadband - to the Catalan territories, especially within the rural areas. We analyse it in, focused in the Lleida’s reality, essential for tourism, in collaboration with UPF.

Broadband coverage in the rural areas by the Generalitat of Catalunya: First step (from 2003 to 2018). This project had 4 main cornerstones, and even though they were supposed to take place independently, in many occasions they shared infrastructures and facilities. These four are: the radio communications infrastructure, the Mobile Telephone technology, the Digital and Terrestrial Television, and the Rural Broadband.

To address the broadband implementation, an evaluation of the whole Catalan situation was carried out. Results showed that there were 2.067 villages were lacking ADSL technology, which was beacon of the wide difference of implementation that this technology had in the different Catalan regions. In order to face this situation, the program designed a special project: Banda Ampla Rural (BAR) (Rural Broadband). This plan aimed to provide with broadband the villages that had more than 50 inhabitants; connect the industrial parks via WiMAX technology, and guarantee a service of quality to the old and new users of this network.

However, the BAR project wasn’t enough to guarantee internet access to all rural areas in Catalunya. This is why the Generalitat launched a parallel program, called BAR-SAT (Rural Broadband via Satellite). This plan sought to provide with internet access those areas where installing other kinds of technology (ADSL, WiMAX or 3G) was impossible or considerably difficult. Offering connection to more than 2.200 new users, BAR-SAT had the Tooway™ technology, provided by the Eutelsat platform. This is a bidirectional broadband service that can achieve speeds and costs similar to those from ADSL technology. Furthermore, this system included the Fair Access Policy (FAP), a temporal regulation system that ensures that all online users can have the same amount of connection.

Current step: from 2018 until today. While this technology was enough during the first years of 2000, it became progressively obsolete due to the increase of Internet demands. Plus, it only gave coverage to 66% of the territory. In this scenario, the Generalitat of Catalunya designed a plan to change the technology that brought broadband. It is Accés Fix Ràdio (AFR), a system based on 3G and 4G service that offers better benefits and a greater coverage. This improvement is going to amplify broadband coverage for up to 91% of the Catalan territory (99% of the population).

Case study: the province of Lleida. A paradigmatic example of this implementation of Internet access to the villages can be found in Lleida province. After an agreement approved in September 2018 between the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Deputation, high-speed Internet connection will be provided to all of Lleida’s villages within the next five years. Within the frame of the new plan approved last year, they have set the plan to provide with fiber optic all of the province’s villages, tracing a 1.500 km-long cable way in a period of 5 years.

The capital of the province, the city of Lleida, was one of the first cities in the world to have Fiber to the Home connection (FTTH) in about 90% of its homes. Moreover, the technology is due to give service not only to houses, but up to 66.740 commercial spaces and businesses.

In the year 2017, the numbers of penetration of the Information Technology in the region of Segrià, which comprises the city of Lleida, were roughly higher than the rest of Catalunya. More concretely, the percentages extracted from Idescat are the next. The available broadband average in Catalunya is 82,9%; in Segrià, 83,4%; in Alta Ribagorça, 80%; Alt Urgell, 79,1%; Cerdanya, 79,7%; Les Garrigues, 81,3%; La Noguera, 81,4%; Pallars Jussà, 77,3%; Pallars Sobirà, 76,3%; Pla d’Urgell, 82,5%; La Segarra, 82,3%; El Solsonès, 80,5%; L’Urgell, 82%; La Val d’Aran, 80%.

The data of the FTTH of the city of Lleida provided by the Spanish Government fit to the results of the plan, and affirms that its penetration is between the 90 and the 100%. However, this is a quite high number compared to the province’s average, which is of 57,3%. This number places Lleida before Girona (53,8%) and Tarragona (49,8%), but still in a great difference compared to Barcelona (93,7%).

When it comes to other categories, the data displayed related to the other Catalan provinces offer interesting interpretations. There’s not a big difference when it comes to the different provinces in terms of IT technologies. However, Lleida has a great impact in the wireless networks that are superior to 30 Mbps. This fact may be explained as a result of the ‘Catalunya Connecta’ plan, which aimed to provide with wireless connection to the Lleida province.

For the city of Lleida, the range of coverage is between 90 and 100% for ADSL technologies superior to 2 Mbps. It is between 70 and 80% for the range of ADSL technologies superior to 10 Mbps, between 90 and 100% in the wireless networks superior to 2 Mbps. And again, between 70 and 80% in wireless networks superior to 30 Mbps.

Taking everything into consideration, we can affirm that Lleida has a good connection adapted to its geographical characteristics. While it is true that it is the province with the smaller population density, by what can be extracted from the Economic Memory of Catalonia in 2017, it can be observed that in general it has a great Internet connection, probably as a response to the big infrastructures and industries that take place in the flatter areas of the province. 
We analyze local broadband evolution (here, the case of Lleida) in this blog, in Research Group about Digital Journalism and Marketing and Broadband and in Research Group on Innovative Monetization Systems of Digital Journalism, Marketing and Tourism (SIMPED), from CECABLE,  Escola Universitària Mediterrani of UdG, UPF and Blanquerna-URL, in Twitter (@CECABLEresearch), Google+, in the group of LinkedIn, in the page of LinkedIn, in the group of Facebook, in Instagram (CECABLE), in Pinterest and in this blog. We will go in deep in the XXIV Cable and Broadband Catalonia Congress (9-10 April 2019, Barcelona).