Telefónica has finalized plans to close its copper network in Spain and has informed the country's National Markets and Competition Commission of its intention to close more than 3,000 of its remaining copper central offices in Spain by April 19, 2024. The eventual closure will end a 10-year effort to decommission its copper assets in the country and move to a full fiber network. The operator previously informed the commission of plans to close 5,203 copper exchanges, of which 2,236 have already been closed. It has just informed the Commission of plans to reject another 3,329. This means it has 6,296 central offices to close in the next 12 months to complete the network closure.
Telefonica expects various benefits from the move, with fiber offering greater energy efficiency, faster speeds and greater reliability than copper. It noted in a press release that a single fiber switch can support the same number of customers as four copper switches combined. On an earnings call in February, Telefonica COO Angel Vila noted that it also benefited from copper and real estate sales as the closures proceeded. "In terms of operating expenses and capital expenditures, we have experienced lower maintenance costs, energy consumption, less fill rates, less call center concerns," he said at the time. "So we will continue to capture that data incrementally through 2023. And then the process will continue, and by 2024, as stated in the presentation, we will be the first telco in the world to shut down a copper network. Due to regulatory obligations, we will need to maintain our wholesale services for an additional six months after the shutdown, but that's what will happen."
It is unclear whether Telefónica's claim that it will be the first telco to shut down its copper network will be confirmed.
Copper fades away
In Canada, Telus has been working to shut down its own copper network for years. Telus executives previously said they expect to "substantially complete our copper-to-fiber migration by the end of 2022," and to fully complete the project by early 2023. As of August 2022, Telus said about 7 percent of its customer base was still using copper. It did not provide updated figures for third- or fourth-quarter 2022 earnings. Its next earnings call will be held May 4 and will cover the first quarter of 2023.
Other carriers around the world are following a similar path, but don't seem to be as far along. In the U.S., AT&T is working to cut its copper footprint in half by 2025, and Verizon began its copper retirement process in 2016 and revealed in March 2022 that it had converted 4.5 million circuits in its network from copper to fiber.
Meanwhile, UK operator Virgin Media O2, jointly owned by Telefonica and Liberty Global, is working to convert its entire network to fiber by 2028. Rival BT is similarly aiming to replace its copper network by the end of 2025.
As for the overall progress of the copper-to-fiber migration in Spain, data released this week by the National Markets and Competition Commission shows that between February 2022 and February 2023, the number of fiber-to-the-home lines increased by 1 million, while the number of fiber-to-the-home lines increased by 1 million. DSL lines by 400,000. The country now has a total of 13.9 million fiber lines, of which Telefónica's Movistar brand is responsible for 5.1 million. Less than 1 million DSL lines remain.
