Cellnex receives a loan of €375M from the EIB to develop 5G telephony infrastructure

BarcelonaThe European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved a loan of 375 million euros for the telecommunications multinational Cellnex to boost the development of 5G mobile telephony infrastructure in Spain, France, Italy, and Portugal, as reported this Friday by the Catalan group in a statement and confirmed by the president of the community body, Nadia Calviño, at an event in Barcelona.

With this loan, Cellnex increases to 770 million euros the amount mobilized to "improve and expand the coverage and capacity of the infrastructure of very high-capacity mobile networks in these countries. With this, the aim is to address high demand in areas with higher traffic and contribute to "accelerating the digital transition in both urban and rural areas", and to expand "strategic autonomy" and competitiveness in Europe.

Among other actions, the project will include new telecommunications infrastructure, such as mobile telecommunications towers and urban sites, improvements so that these infrastructures can be shared among various operators, and the deployment of 5G networks. It will also feature distributed antenna systems to significantly increase the capacity of the sites, as well as investments to modernize the digital terrestrial television network in Spain.

Fewer towers

Cellnex has explained that this project is an "example" of the open-access business model that encourages sites shared by multiple operators. The company maintains that this reduces the total number of towers required without reducing the capacity or coverage of the networks or the quality of the digital services offered to citizens.

Around half of the new towers will be installed in cohesion regions, which is expected to help mitigate the digital divide and generate socio-economic benefits in the areas of operation. This is the third operation by the EIB and Cellnex to boost the development of mobile telecommunications infrastructure in Europe, which, according to the company's CFO, Raimon Trias, "consolidates" the relationship between both entities.

According to Trias, the term and "competitive" conditions of the EIB loan will strengthen the company's "financial structure" and extend the average debt maturity.