Comunicado sobre la soberanía tecnológica y el consumo responsable

Given the increasing awareness among the population regarding the impact of different consumption alternatives, to which we welcome!, from the Fundació per a la Xarxa Oberta, Lliure i Neutral, guifi.net, we make the following points to enrich the debate and facilitate decision-making in the field of telecommunications.

A. Own Infrastructure vs. Third-Party Infrastructure

Telecommunications operators can offer services to their customers through their own infrastructure or by renting it from third parties. Examples of operators with their own infrastructure are Movistar, Vodafone, and Orange. Examples of operators that offer their services through third-party infrastructure are Pepephone and Parlem. There are operators that can operate on their own infrastructure or third-party infrastructure indiscriminately, as Masmóvil does.

In terms of sovereignty, the option of owning infrastructure reduces dependence on third parties. 

B. Privative Infrastructure vs. Commons Infrastructure

The ownership and operation model are also key factors when talking about resilience and sovereignty.

Privative Infrastructure 

 In the privative model, network resources are managed like any other private good and, therefore, are subject to being used in speculative operations (for example, selling to other companies) or as instruments to fight against competing operators (for example, degrading the quality of access to competitors' services) among many other bad practices (underinvestment, duplication of infrastructures, etc.) that end up affecting the service received by end users. 

Commons Infrastructure

 In the commons model, the network infrastructure is built and operated collectively by all participants (companies, volunteers, public administrations, etc.) through clear participation rules aimed at ensuring equal access opportunities and preserving its legal status, shielding the network against privatization and all the bad practices associated with this model. 

C. Global Economy vs. Local Economy

It is verifiable that the privative model entails the globalization of companies and, consequently, the ills associated with globalization: concentration of infrastructure in few hands, deterioration of working conditions, commodification of customers, etc. Conversely, it is also observable that the commons model favors the development of the local economy, with companies rooted in the territory that offer proximity services. 

D. Mobile Telephony: A Special Case

Unlike wired networks (fiber optic and copper) and WiFi networks (IEEE802.11 standard) which can be deployed by any operator (liberalized sector), mobile telephony networks can only be deployed by operators that have obtained the corresponding license to use the frequencies they use. In the Spanish case, the only operators with a license are Movistar, Vodafone, Orange, and Yoigo, and therefore, only these operators have their own mobile telephony infrastructure. The rest of the operators that offer mobile telephony services do so through agreements with one of these four operators to use their infrastructure. This is why as of today it is not possible to deploy a common mobile telephony network.