Telecommunication in Spain

Development of telephone and internet connections

With an average download speed of 129.61 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Spain ranked 11th in an international comparison. The upload rate was only 99.92 Mbit/second (5th place). The quality of the Internet, consisting of signal fluctuations (jitter) and latency, is very far ahead at 5th place.
In mobile internet, i.e. on tablets and smartphones, Spain comes 55th with a download speed of 33.07 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 9 Mbit was only enough for 87th place.

The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in April 2022 from 181 countries.

The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and Internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100% mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.

Access to the Internet in Spain from 1990 - 2020

Broadband internet in Spain 2000 - 2020

The expansion of broadband Internet in Spain is roughly on a par with the EU average. Around 93% of all residents have access to the Internet. Around 34% have their own fast Internet connection, which is at least faster than the former ISDN (more than 256 kbit/s). All fixed connections via DSL, cable or satellite were counted here, but not those connected to the Internet via mobile communications. With around 2.5 people per household, this means that around 85.5 percent of all households are equipped with a fast Internet connection.