Telefonica to continue as Spain payphone provider for 12 months

Spain’s Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Digital Agenda has announced in the country’s official gazette that Telefonica will have to continue to operate the payphone network and publish directories until 31 December 2018. The government’s decision to apply a further 12-month extension to the commitment comes after no operators applied in the tender for the universal service contracts. Under its universal service obligations, Telefonica is obliged to ensure that a sufficient number of payphones are available in public areas.

In 2016 the CNMC published a report proposing to remove universal service obligations for public payphones in view of decreasing demand for the booths in the era of mobile telephony and the increased cost of their provision. There were 25,820 payphones in Spain in 2015, down from the 100,000 in the country in 2000.