The approval of this law constitutes one of the measures included in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Spanish economy (PRTR), approved by the European Commission on June 16, 2021, with the short-term objective of supporting the recovery of the Spanish economy after the health crisis, promoting a process of structural transformation in the medium term and achieving more sustainable and resilient development from an economic-financial point of view in the long term.
The main objective of the law is promoting investment in very high capacity networks, introducing figures such as geographical studies or co-investment, which can be taken into account in the field of market analysis. With this same objective of encouraging deployments, the shared use of the public domain or private property, the shared use of the associated infrastructures and resources, and the shared use of the final sections of the access networks are guaranteed.
What we want to achieve is that 100% of the population of our country has access to a Internet connection of at least 100 Mbps in a downward direction and at affordable prices, this objective is brought forward with the publication of this standard since it was initially planned for the year 2025.
Another of the highlights of the new General Telecommunications Law is the update of the Universal Service, which from now on considers access to email, social networks and online training with a minimum speed of 10 Mbps expandable to 30 Mbps as basic services; Telephone booths and telephone directories are left out.
The LGT also establishes that the social bonus It can be requested from any operator, not just Telefónica, and regulates service package contracts.
Important new features are also introduced regarding public domain radio, incorporating measures that facilitate the shared use of the radio spectrum by operators and avoiding undue restrictions on the implementation of wireless access points for small areas.
Additionally, with the aim of promoting regulatory predictability and the recovery of investments, the minimum and maximum duration periods of the concessions for private use of the public radio domain with a limitation of number are extended, so that these concessions will have a minimum duration of twenty years and may have a maximum duration, if the maximum extension period is granted, of up to forty years.
The law also incorporates advances in matter of protection of the rights of end users of telecommunications services, reinforcing, for example, transparency obligations and regulating packaged contracts.
Additionally, it reviews the regulations on market access and analysis, the regulations on universal telecommunications service are updated and security measures are introduced to manage the new risks to which networks and services are subjected.
It includes, in accordance with the Code, the possibility for the European Commission to establish maximum single rates of voice call termination at European level, and the operation of number 112 as an emergency call number throughout Europe is reinforced, establishing the obligation that said number be accessible to people with disabilities. A system of public alerts through mobile services in the event of major disasters or emergencies imminent or ongoing.
Finally, the classification of electronic communications services contained in the Code is incorporated into the law. In this way, a distinction is made between Internet access services, interpersonal communications services and services consisting, in whole or mainly, of the transport of signals, such as transmission services used for the provision of machine-to-machine services and for broadcasting. In turn, within the interpersonal communications services, interpersonal communications services based on numbering and interpersonal communications services independent of numbering are differentiated, depending on whether or not they allow, respectively, communications with assigned public numbering resources, that is, a number or numbers from the national or international numbering plans.
As a result of its passage through the Senate, the law will also require operators to provide customer service in all official state languages.
The law consists of one hundred and fourteen articles, grouped into eight titles, thirty additional provisions, seven transitional provisions, one repealing provision, six final provisions and three annexes.
The present rule will come into force on June 30, 2022. The right of end users not to receive unwanted calls for commercial communication purposes l contemplated in art. 66.1.b)will come into force within one year counting from the publication of this law in the "Official State Gazette"
