MADRID, 26 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Official State Gazette (BOE) has published this Monday the order of bases for the call for aid from the Unico-5G Active Networks program, which will have a budget of more than 500 million euros to deploy in municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants the necessary equipment in 5G network services.

The Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures, María González Veracruz, has reported that they are "pioneering" aid in Europe with which the Government of Spain wants to avoid "the appearance of a territorial gap in the implementation of 5G".

Likewise, these aids pursue the objective of guaranteeing territorial cohesion through universal connectivity in Spain to this 5G technology, "which will mark all kinds of economic and social trends in the coming years", the Department has detailed in a press release. Directed by Nadia Calviño.

Among the different technical aspects included in the regulatory bases of these aids is the provision of necessary active and passive equipment and, where appropriate, additional infrastructure such as "backhaul", reinforcement of masts or energy, necessary for the provision of 5G services. 'stand alone'.

All these measures will allow the citizens of these rural environments to deepen the digital transformation of economic sectors such as agriculture, rural tourism, surveillance of critical infrastructures such as dams and power plants, telemedicine or tele-education, among others. .

The evaluation criteria also assess the amount of population covered and the kilometers of road, as well as the construction of new sites. In addition, the projects must be completed before June 30, 2025.

To achieve the deployment of 5G in rural areas, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation has detailed that these aids are directed, among other recipients, at operators with rights to use frequencies in the 5G bands to encourage them to deploy this technology as well. in smaller municipalities.