Telefónica has reported that it reached the "milestone" of closing 1,000 copper plants in the first half of the year, five of them in Lanzarote, which means "continuing to advance in its digitalization and network transformation plan to offer the best connectivity." In the Canary Islands as a whole, according to the company, 69 copper plants have already been closed. In addition to the five in Lanzarote, there are 33 in Gran Canaria, 25 in Tenerife, 3 in Fuerteventura, 2 in El Hierro and 1 in La Gomera.
According to Pablo Ledesma, Director of Operations of Telefónica España, “Telefónica began its network transformation process with the closure of plants in 2016 and since then, despite adverse circumstances in some years such as last year, it has continued its plan to close copper plants and expand fiber to advance in the objective of offering the best connectivity to both individual and business customers.” "Once again Telefónica, which with its fiber deployment has contributed greatly to positioning Spain as the European country with the most fiber optics, is developing its activity according to the needs brought about by the new services and the new generation of 5G mobile telephony,” he said.
The objective of this transformation plan is to complete fiber coverage "with a fully digital network and encourage all customers to switch to fiber in order to improve their experience with the services and place them in the best position for the digital future, in addition to consolidating Telefónica's environmental objective."
Since the beginning of its closure plan, Telefónica states that it has dismantled 65,000 tons of cable; has recycled 7,140 tons of WEEE (waste from electrical and electronic equipment) and other elements; has reused more than 128,000 cards in its network and has saved around 1000 Gwh (355,000 tCo2, equivalent to planting six million trees).
Regarding the reduction of space, it is explained that "a fiber plant provides service to the same number of accesses that are served from four copper plants" and that "fiber access technology occupies only 15% of the space of copper access."
In this way, it is pointed out that the process of closing copper plants entails "a boost to the circular economy based on reduction, reuse and recycling (the 3 R's rule)." "The energy and space savings, together with the recycling of components and the environmental improvement implied by the shutdown of obsolete technologies, allows Telefónica to advance in the strategic environmental commitment of net zero emissions by 2025," the company concludes.
