C114 News, September 28 (by Jiang Junmu) Amidst the wave of the AI era, the positioning of optical networks is being redefined: they are no longer merely "communication pipes," but rather the nervous system of an intelligent society and a prerequisite for digital transformation across industries.
At the Optical Summit held during HUAWEI CONNECT 2026, Francisco Hortigüela, President of AMETIC, Spain, delivered a speech that offered a unique perspective for the event themed around "Optical-AI Convergence" to benefit all industries.
Spain holds a unique position in the European telecommunications industry. In terms of optical fiber networks, it is widely recognized as a benchmark across Europe. According to the country report of the "Digital Decade" plan released by the European Commission (EC) in 2025, Spain's fiber coverage ranks second in Europe, covering 95% of households and 86.3% of rural areas, well above the European average. Latest statistics from the Spanish National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) show that as of June 2026, the country's fiber to the home (FTTH) access lines exceeded 18.2 million, holding an absolute dominant position out of a total of 19.9 million broadband access lines.
While the achievements represented by these figures are striking, what truly deserves attention is how Spain has extended its advantages in ICT infrastructure from residential scenarios to broader industrial spaces. In this process, the building fiber foundations laid by Fiber Ready are effectively connecting with fiber-based passive optical LAN (POL) solutions, releasing greater industrial application value. As one of Spain's oldest national industry associations, whose members include enterprises of all sizes, universities, institutions, and organizations, AMETIC's related practices are undoubtedly highly representative.
Institutional Precedence: Writing "Fiber Ready" into the "Factory Configuration" of Buildings
When discussing a country's level of digitalization, public opinion tends to focus on the prosperity of applications. However, Spain's experience prompts people to first examine the depth of the network side. As Francisco Hortigüela stated in his opening remarks, "Optical fiber is the foundation of ICT infrastructure in the intelligent era, much like water and electricity today."
The starting point for the takeoff of Spain's optical fiber network was not a technological breakthrough or spontaneous market forces, but institutions. About 12 to 15 years ago, the country promoted FTTH through regulatory provisions, requiring newly built residences to reserve conditions for fiber deployment, making it a European model for integrating ICT infrastructure into residential buildings. The foresight of this decision is now fully evident: Spain has completed the nationwide shutdown of its ADSL copper network, becoming one of the few European countries to completely achieve the transition from copper to fiber.
The EU's Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA) goes a step further on this basis, with new regulations explicitly stipulating that all new and majorly renovated buildings within the EU must be equipped with fiber-ready physical infrastructure, mandatory since May 12, 2026. The right to fiber connectivity has thus expanded from residential buildings to "all human activity spaces requiring connectivity."
Francisco Hortigüela introduced that in response to the Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA), the UNE 133100-8 standard promoted by the Spanish Secretariat of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures (SETELECO) and formulated within the Spanish standardization body UNE, has been approved. This extends Spain's established "Fiber Ready" methodology beyond existing residential ICT frameworks to various types of buildings, including hospitals, hotels, education, culture, and tourism. The next challenge is broader adoption and integration into the regulatory system, with SETELECO expected to issue corresponding instructions and define submission and registration processes.
This promotion path reflects the consistent logic of Spain's optical fiber policies: regulations set boundaries, industry organizations formulate standards, and government legislation guarantees implementation. This was true a dozen years ago, and remains true today as we move from residential buildings to all industries.
Scenario Breakthrough: POL Enables All-Optical Foundation to Grow Industrial Value
If fiber readiness focuses on "fiber to the building," then the passive optical LAN (POL) aims to address the issue of getting "fiber to the room, to the terminal, and to the service."
About two years ago, AMETIC, in collaboration with universities such as the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and over 10 member units, initiated the compilation of the Industry White Paper on Smart Hospitals POL (Passive Optical LAN) Network Applications which is now available for download in Spanish and English on their official websites. Choosing hospitals as the first breakthrough point was a pragmatic consideration by AMETIC: among all buildings, hospitals handle massive and extremely sensitive data, and applications such as DNA analysis require massive data and AI computing power; meanwhile, the direction of Spanish medical policy is "de-hospitalization," allowing patients to receive care in home environments, which requires reliable connectivity between hospitals and homes.
More importantly, there is a landing lever—combined with UNE's "Fiber Ready" standard, the association worked with the entire industry and numerous associations to formulate smart hospital guidelines. Released at the end of July this year, these guidelines are now in effect.
This combination of technologies and standards delivers tangible technical and economic benefits. Data published by AMETIC shows that compared to traditional Ethernet architecture, POL replaces the aggregation-layer active devices with passive optical splitters, simplifying the network architecture from three layers to two. Using optical fibers instead of copper cables can reduce carbon emissions by about 60%. With a fiber coverage distance of up to 40 km (400 times that of network cables) and a lifecycle of up to 30 years, bandwidth upgrades require no cable replacement or secondary construction. For hospitals with tight budgets and limited reconstruction time windows, "one-time cabling, 30 years of benefits" is more persuasive than any technical concept.
Francisco Hortigüela reveal that POL could be used in all vertical sectors such as education, hospitality, and tourism. He cited that the tourism industry is a pillar of Spain's economy, welcoming a hundred million of tourists annually; Eurostat data shows that in 2025, the EU tourism industry hit another record, with Spain ranking first in the EU with 513.6 million tourist overnight stays. "Hotel owners want to provide the best experience for their guests, and this requires the best connectivity."
The Final Threshold: Building Awareness Is More Important Than Bridging the Technological Gap
At the end of his speech, Francisco Hortigüela mentioned an impressive detail. During an exchange with a hospital, he found that their network planning had been finalized two or three years prior, making it too late when they were aware of the POL solution.
This detail points to a deeper issue: despite the obvious advantages of POL, cognitive awareness of this technology among policymakers and senior decision-makers remains very low—once the window period is missed, older technologies will be "locked in" for the next reconstruction cycle. Francisco Hortigüela candidly stated that this was one of AMETIC's core discoveries during the white paper compilation process. AMETIC's response has been to list training and social communication as work of equal importance to standard formulation, while consistently adhering to a green and low-carbon narrative: "Education is important, and the environment and the planet are equally important."
"Everyone is talking about digitalization, but digitalization is not possible if we do not have future prepare connectivity infrastructure, for that reason it is important the fiber readiness”." Francisco Hortigüela's words perhaps best capture the value of fiber networks. As AI transitions from "being able to handle things" to "getting things done," the network supporting it must also evolve toward all-optical integration. Spain's experience provides a sample: taking institutional precedence as the foundation, ecological collaboration as the method, and high-demand scenarios like hospitals as the breakthrough point to practically benefit all industries with Fiber Ready + POL. This path also holds valuable lessons for the Chinese industrial community, which is currently advancing the large-scale deployment of F5G-A and all-optical campuses.