Vodafone signs deal with Orange to invest in infrastructure in Spain

Vodafone Spain has signed an agreement with fellow telecoms company Orange to co-invest in street-level 'fibre', a type of horizontal infrastructure, in the country. Although the fibre will be owned independently, the companies will share the same technical specifications to ensure compatibility as a single network, and each partner will have guaranteed access to the whole infrastructure.The technology is intended to reach six million households and workplaces across 50 major cities by September 2017, costing a total of one billion euros. The companies, which are also deploying their own in-building vertical infrastructure, are planning to reach 800,000 households and workplaces by March 2014, three million by September 2015. Vodafone Chief Executive for the Southern Europe region, Paolo Bertoluzzo, said: "I am delighted to announce our plans to work with Orange to deploy fibre networks across Spain. This agreement demonstrates Vodafone's commitment to provide high-speed unified communications services to our customers coupled with our willingness to invest when there are positive returns."Vodafone added that the programme is open to third party investors. Vodafone's share price was 1.03% lower at 183.10p by 12:52 Wednesday. NR