There is no quiet year in the telecommunications sector, say those who compete every day between gigabytes, artificial intelligence (AI) and convergence offers. But the truth, after years of more or less similar inertia, is that in the last three months a tsunami of news has been unleashed that has caused the sector to enter 2024 with a feeling of vertigo that was unknown.
If nothing goes wrong with the signing tomorrow of Telefónica's first ERE since José María Álvarez-Pallete became president, 3,450 employees will leave the company before the State, through the Business Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI), takes 10% of the capital of, until now, the largest Spanish telecom company.
That is the first major change in the sector for 2024. Telefónica will once again have the State as the main shareholder, after 26 years, as a Government strategy to counteract the power of another State, the Saudi State, which through its telephone company STC He already has 4.9% of the Spanish company and the option of requesting approval from the Spanish Ministry of Defense to materialize the other 5% he owns in derivatives if he wants to sit on the board of directors.
Also pending official authorization is another large business movement that will be formalized in 2024. The acquisition of Vodafone Spain by the British fund Zegona. A formality that must be approved by the Council of Ministers and that will transform the status quo of the sector. Zegona has already announced its intention to maximize the value of Vodafone. Sale of assets, layoffs... We will have to wait until the end of the first quarter to find out their specific project, at least a new price war is taken for granted.
The big event of 2024 for Spain and Europe will be the final approval of the merger between Orange and MásMóvil. Digi's weight in the market can grow if it finally keeps part of its assets and we must see how this movement can trigger intra-European mergers.
The deployment of rural broadband connection will be another of the challenges that will mark the year. By 2024, the Government has put out to tender a historic investment package that seeks to end this year with 90% of the territory connected to fixed broadband, while satellite deployment through the public company Hispasat will aim to complete in 2025. 100% of that internet connection. It will be the year in which Telefónica definitively turns off copper connections and ADSL connections almost disappear.
They are bidding to take its place with real 5G, not the one that has been sold until now deployed on 4G networks, and 6G is also already knocking on the door. Spain is already very late in the development of these technologies. The Government has given companies in the sector until October to define their strategy in the development of 5G to mitigate security risks and avoid dependence on a single supplier. Under this premise, Brussels has already vetoed Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE for being “a risk to the security of the 5G network.” Spain has yet to publish its own list of prohibitions, among many other basic legislation, to face the challenges of this new technology. Among the most important will be the 5G Cybersecurity law, the general Telecommunications law or the Audiovisual Communications law. All of them are transcendent to continue advancing in the generalization of cloud computing and machine learning (a key process in business competitiveness).
Another of the topics in which in 2024 we must move from theory to a much more massive practice both in Spain and worldwide, according to the latest FutureScape report, from the consulting firm ID, will be digital businesses based on artificial intelligence. (AI) and generative artificial intelligence (GenIA) to generate new sources of income, if experts manage to overcome the current dichotomy between the unknown dangers that this new technology engenders and the need for machines to replace humans in strategic tasks for companies.
