What is the new Telecommunications Law?

Last week, the Spanish Government presented in a public hearing the draft of the Telecommunications Law, to which contributions may be carried out until 13 October through the website of the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation.

It seems that the law may be approved in the middle of next year.

5G investments.

A review of the rules regarding radio spectrum concessions is expected, including a minimum of 15 years for the spectrum awards, with a minimum extension of 5 more years. That is, the spectrum award will be at least 20 years, thus preventing uncertainty of the operators’ investments in this technology.

Fees for messaging operators.

One of the main changes is that, for the first time, they consider to force the instant messaging operators, such as Whatsapp and Telegram, to be registered, thus applying a fee of €1 for every €1,000 they receive per year, provided that they invoice more than 1 million Euro in Spain.

This is hard to apply or understand, since Whatsapp or Telegram, for example, are free until the date. It would be more reasonable to think of this in the future when these apps are no longer free.

Reinforcing users’ rights.

The Telecommunications Act draft also proposes several measures to reinforce users’ rights against operators, for example in terms of contract transparency.

It also refers to ease users’ portability by way of some measures that make it easier and faster.

Emergency telephone.

Regarding 112, it considers the possibility of finding the location of the person who is calling, and implementing a public alert system.

A final goodbye to telephone boxes?

Another point covered by the draft is the possibility of removing all the telephone boxes by eliminating them as part of the universal service to be provided to the citizens.