Spanish telecom operator Masmovil inked a 5G agreement with rival operator Orange Spain which will boost the company’s EBITDA for the next three years, the telco said in a release.
Under the terms of the agreement, which covers mobile, fiber and broadband technologies, Masmovil will speed up its 5G rollout capabilities and also significantly increase its fiber optic footprint by up to 14.2 million homes by 2020.
“This new agreement will allow us to finalize the development of a unique model in Europe for the construction of our own high-speed networks of the fourth operator in the most efficient possible way. In addition, together with the good commercial and financial progress recorded by Masmovil in the first half of the year, we have substantially improved our guidance,” said Meinrad Spenger, CEO of Masmovil.
As part of the deal, the operator has reviewed and improved its national roaming agreement with Orange Spain.
The deal gives Masmovil access to Orange Spain’s entire 5G network thanks to a “virtual active sharing mode” agreement, enabling it to deploy 5G in 4,500 locations that cover 35% of the Spanish population in 40 main cities including Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Zaragoza, Malaga and Bilbao. Orange will deploy a total of 1,500 new sites until the end of 2021 in Spain.
Masmovil also said it is investing €180 million ($197 million) in the deal, “an amount significantly lower than the standalone deployment.”
The 5G deal between Masmovil and Orange will be valid until 2028 and is extendable for 5 additional years. Also, Masmovil said it has renegotiated its optional RaaS (Radio as a service) or IRU agreement with Orange at 6,000 locations, which will allow to manage efficiently its customers’ traffic.
In addition, Masmovil has reached a new agreement with Orange Spain that will allow it to improve the profitability of its fiber network. Masmovil owns and operates a fixed infrastructure of ADSL fiber as well as 3G and 4G networks. At present, the company says this covers 20 million households with fiber optic and 18 million more with ADSL. Its 4G mobile network covers 98.5% of the Spanish population. The company has more than 8.3 million customers in Spain.
Orange Spain recently selected Chinese vendor ZTE for the provision of 5G infrastructure in certain Spanish cities, local newspaper Expansion reported, citing market sources. Under the terms of the agreement, ZTE will deploy 5G infrastructure in the cities of Bilbao, San Sebastián, Vitoria, Logroño and Zaragoza.
With this deal, ZTE joins Ericsson and Huawei, which are also working with the Spanish carrier in the deployment of 5G infrastructure. According to the report, Huawei now has 50% of Orange’s 5G network deployments, followed by Ericsson, with 45% and ZTE with approximately 5%.
In June this year, ZTE and Orange carried out a number of demonstrations of the potential of 5G technologies in the fields of automation, robotics and entertainment. The demos were unveiled at the Global 5G event, which took place in Valencia, Spain.
