Vodafone’s 5G network expected to cover Spain’s 82% population by 2024

Vodafone was the first operator to offer 5G to its customers in 2019, a year before the competition, but the 5G deployment pace slowed down At the same time, their income and customer base also fell.

Over the years, this situation caused Vodafone to become somewhat lagging behind in coverage extension against Movistar and Orange, so the operator is going to try to remedy it by giving it a new push to 5G.

Vodafone’s 5G coverage will add 700 new towns
Vodafone just announced plans to deploy 5G in Spain by 2024, which will expand its coverage of 700 new populationswhich is good news for users, although the data indicated reveals other operator weaknesses.

This is the last proposal from Vodafone Spain before Zegona takes over the controls of the operator in the spring: it is committed to expanding its 5G coverage to reach the 82% of the population and a total of 2,700 municipalities at the end of this year, exceeding the deployment obligations committed to the Government.

In this way, Vodafone will deploy 5G in 147 towns with less than 1,000 inhabitants and in 553 towns with between 1,000 and 50,000 inhabitants. Andalusia, Castilla y León, Galicia and Extremadura They will be the Communities where the greatest number of populations will have 5G for the first time. At the end you will see a more detailed list.

For the deployment, Vodafone reports that it will use the 700MHz 5G frequency to improve coverage especially inside buildings, rural environments and small towns. Users will have access to a more stable connection and prepared to be safe from saturationbut they will not notice notable changes in the maximum speed, since 5G in this band offers a speed similar to 4G in low bands.

To access the fastest 5G (up to 1 Gbps) it is necessary that the deployment takes place in the 3.5 GHz bandand on this point in particular, Vodafone He has not revealed details of his progress.

Nor has he given details about the 5G+ commercial opening to telephone users, which is available in Movistar and Orange. For now, the availability of Vodafone’s 5G SA remains exclusive to companies and pilot tests, as are the bulk of its advantages.

The new data revealed by Vodafone would possibly place it behind Movistar and Orange, which before the start of 2024 were already announcing 5G coverage in 85% of the population and 2,400 locations.

But when it comes to announcements about the deployment of 5G, there is usually more marketing than reality, where each operator reveals what interests them, and the data offered is not strictly comparable, so to try to shed a little clarity on the real situation of 5G deployment in Spainlet’s go with another point of view, based on the number of antennas deployed with 5G.

Thanks to the number of antennas installed and the type, it could be established that Movistar is the operator with the most locations prepared to offer the highest speed (more than double that of its rivals), while Orange is the operator that has the most 5G antennas in the band with better indoor coverage and the most far-reaching.

Of the areas where there is mobile coverage with any technology, 2G in the 900 MHz band is the most widespread, and taking this data as a reference maximum coverage of each operator in the territory (instead of basing ourselves on coverage according to population), an approximation could be established that the 48% of the Orange network is already 5Ghe 38% of the Movistar network It is already 5G and that 29% of Vodafone network It’s already 5G. Gearrice