French telecoms giant Orange Group has confirmed that, four months after its acquisition of alternative Spanish operator Jazztel, Orange Espana’s fibre network now passes 5.2 million premises.
Orange Group has said it will reinforce its investments in Spain, with a view to ‘consolidating the position of its subsidiary as Europe’s leading alternative operator in terms of fibre coverage’. As a result of an updated deployment program, Orange claims the total accumulated investment in the company’s Spanish FTTH network – including all investments already made by Orange and Jazztel – will be between EUR1.5 billion and EUR1.7 billion (USD1.6 billion-USD1.8 billion). The expenditure will enable Orange Group’s Spanish operations to extend fibre coverage to ten million premises in 2016 as previously planned, while the operator aims to increase that figure to 14 million by the end of 2020, with the fibre network at that date to cover more than 80% of all Spanish cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants.
Alongside its fibre rollout plans, around EUR1.5 billion will be spent on the development of Orange Espana’s 4G network, with the aim of reaching 85% of the population by the end of 2015 – or around 1,300 cities – and 95% in 2017.