Broadband in a local atmosphere: the case of Granollers

Broadband is a growing issue in today’s society. It is relevant talking in all levels of life and society. It is important in terms of Welfare State, with e-health and e-learning, in the Public Administrative Sector and in E-Business. Every communication, every search, every activity embraces the Broadband Society, and furthermore, an amount of good guaranteed broadband, which means access everywhere at any time. 

It is related with the concept “always one”, which means 24/7 connectivity. If every activity needs broadband, the paper of this “new” concept englobes either general relationships and specific ones. Municipal activity is as important as general activities of the country. In this article, in collaboration with Maria Rovira, from UPF, we will focus in the case of Vallès Oriental, writing about Granollers.

Broadband in telecommunications is a high-bandwidth data transmission which moves multiple signals and traffic types. The medium used can be coaxial cable, fiber optic, radio or twisted pair. In terms of Internet access, broadband is used to refer to any high-speed Internet access and at the same time it has to be always activated and also faster than dial-up access through traditional analogue PSTN or ISDN services. This services were guaranteed and promoted due to the impact of the technology terminals added to the new communication infrastructures as for example fiber optics and the public administrative and industry initiatives. Telecommunications and Information Society State Secretary (Ministry of Science and Technology) in Spain explained the first time when this concept was presented. It took place in August 1989 in Brasilia, in the Plenary Assembly of CCITT (Consultative Committee for International Telegraphy and Telephony), that is nowadays known as International Union of Telecommunications.

CCITT: "Qualifying a service or system requiring transmission channels capable of supporting rates greater than the primary rate". These new public networks were defined by the International telecom agents as a service which has transmission channels with a higher capability than other primary access produced before. 

The CCITT had started developing Broadband project as itself beating ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), a network entirely digital which allowed the access to itself connection to many terminals. 

The ISDN started with a small speed of 2 Mbps, but afterwards there was an improvement in terms of broadband audio. It was four times better than IDN, from 3.1 kHz to 7 KhZ, also using 64Kbps digital channels instead of a modem with a single access method. It means that then they could share and send larger files (storage). Then in 1988, the CCITT approved the technology that would be used by the future broadband ISDN; ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode). The objective was to integrate all kinds of networks and services in a general one, such as voice, content or video, guaranteeing at the same time a quality capability according to the terminal of use. It resulted from here the concept of “Broadband Society”. 

It was expanded in the 90s all over the world with different types of technologies and applications, such as mobile devices, ADSL or fibre optics. And finally, broadband networks arrived in Catalonia (it is been more than ten years now).

Private operators started to exploit broadband to citizens, but they were providing large cities and forgetting small and rural ones. Here started the problem which nowadays still exist. Spain is located in the number 13th from among a list of countries by the number of broadband Internet users (the data is form 2010). It is a list by the total number of subscribers. A single subscription can serve more than one user. Talking about countries by Internet connection speed, Spain is located in the 24th position, with an average speed of 15.5 mbps. It shows the average data transfer rate for Internet access by end users. 

The CNMC (National Market and Competition Commission) Blog published a New this January 2020 summarizing one study that they have made about a geographical analysis of broadband services and the deployment of NGA in Spain, focusing in the different municipes (data from 2018). This analysis do not present each individual municipality with their principle uses of broadband, instead of that, CNMC puts the focus in terms of population of each municipality, for example, a municipality between 1.000 and 5.000 people or between 50.000 and 100.000. 

One of the principals conclusion of this study is firstly, that Spanish municipalities with more than 10.000 inhabitants are nowadays allowed to be connected to the Internet, mainly through fiber optic, with FTTH. Contextualizing in the case we have to analyse, in Vallès Oriental there are 406.289 people, and in Granollers there are 60.981 people. In the light of the above, Granollers could be included in that strip between 10.000 and 50.000, even if it exceeds the strip a little. In terms of the different operators, it is important to say that here they also play an important role in the research. 

Movistar used to be the main operator talking about broadband, but studies have shown that other alternatives operators had an impact on these municipalities. According to the research, the number of active fiber lines reached 8.6 million in 2018 and 82% of the new accesses were installed in municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants. Alternative operators led the hiring service, leaving Movistar in the background. The largest increase occurred in municipalities with a population of 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, to the detriment of xDSL technology. 

As FTTH contracts increased, access penetration in the different Spanish municipalities also increased. The greatest penetrations were observed in Barcelona and Madrid, with penetrations of 36.3 and 32.9 accesses per 100 inhabitants respectively. In municipalities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, however, xDSL remained the main mode of access to broadband.

Contextualizing into Vallès Oriental, on October 23, 2013 the new Open Network node in Granollers, in Roca Umbert precinct, was put into operation. This node has been integrated into the XLS MPLS network to strengthen the trunk section between Barcelona and Girona. Granollers is one of the cities with the most broadband network. 84% of homes, offices and premises in 2015 in the capital of Vallès Oriental had the possibility to access to fiber optics. 

It was possible due to an agreement between the City Council and the telecommunications operator Jazztel for the deployment of the fiber-optic network in the city. That made Granollers one of the first cities to be widely deployed in almost all the homes of the municipality, 23,500, with the aim of providing Granollers with ultra-fast broadband Internet access. FTTH home fiber technology was chosen because it allowed better access to speed, quality and security in the services of telephony, broadband and television services, and enabled multi-device connection within the home.

Jazztel CEO in these days, José Miguel García, explained that they had chosen Granollers because of its high Internet usage and that these agreements would allow the city to have one of the most advanced telecommunications networks in the European Union. The business project of Jazztel involved an investment of 5.5 million euros to reach 23,500 homes and business. 

The implantation of the fiber optics has advanced at the same time in the industrial estates. Thanks to the deployment by Ono and Colt companies, the Palou Nord and Cal Gordi-Cal Català estates already have fiber optics. In this case, wireless broadband coverage is also added through Wimax, which has been made possible through an agreement with the Barcelona-Catalonia Circuit to use the antennas for this installation. Telefonica was currently deploying fiber optics in the Jordi Camp, Congost and Font del Radium polygons. The same operator also planned to act in the polygon of Coll de la Manya.

Taking the aforementioned points into account, this data makes Granollers one of the cities with the most broadband network, with a coverage and degree of penetration of more than 80%. It is possible thanks to the availability of 6 fiber optic networks: Vodafone (Ono); Movistar; Jazztel (Orange); Colt; municipal corporate fiber optics of the City of Granollers and the fiber optic network of the Open Network of the Generalitat of Catalonia.

We analyze broadband and HbbTV evolution (here, the case of Granollers) 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), 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 XXV Cable and Broadband Catalonia Congress (2021, Barcelona, Blanquerna Auditorium).