Progress
On track or target met
On track or target met

Desired direction: Increase

Sub-categories

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Headline data

Proportion of population covered by a mobile network, by technology
Year Value Units Series
2018 99.97 % Proportion of households covered by 3.5G mobile networks
2014 99.4 % Proportion of households covered by 3.5G mobile networks
2016 99.85 % Proportion of households covered by 3.5G mobile networks
2013 99.5 % Proportion of households covered by 3.5G mobile networks
2017 99.96 % Proportion of households covered by 3.5G mobile networks
2015 99.89 % Proportion of households covered by 3.5G mobile networks
2020 99.99 % Proportion of households covered by 3.5G mobile networks
2012 96.6 % Proportion of households covered by 3.5G mobile networks
2019 99.97 % Proportion of households covered by 3.5G mobile networks
2020 99.98 % Proportion of households covered by 4G mobile networks
2022 99.97 % Proportion of households covered by 4G mobile networks
2019 99.95 % Proportion of households covered by 4G mobile networks
2017 99.01 % Proportion of households covered by 4G mobile networks
2015 79.64 % Proportion of households covered by 4G mobile networks
2014 55.1 % Proportion of households covered by 4G mobile networks
2021 99.99 % Proportion of households covered by 4G mobile networks
2016 93.46 % Proportion of households covered by 4G mobile networks
2018 99.89 % Proportion of households covered by 4G mobile networks
2021 66.8 % Proportion of households covered by 5G mobile networks
2022 84.6 % Proportion of households covered by 5G mobile networks
2023 95.8 % Proportion of households covered by 5G mobile networks

Geographical Area:

Unit of Measurement:

Footnote:

Methodological sheet of the indicator available for the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country.

Available indicator

Proportion of population covered by a mobile network, by technology
Target

9.c Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020
Goal

9- Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Definition

Proportion of households covered by third generation (3G) mobile networks based on the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) standard and equipped with HSPA (High Speed Packet Access), also known as 3.5G, by LTE (Long Term Evolution) mobile networks, also known as 4G, or by 5G mobile networks
Theoretical formula \[PHRM^{t} = \frac{HRM_{technology}^{t}}{HRM^{t}} \cdot 100\]

where:

$HRM_{technology}^{t} =$ households covered by mobile networks in the year $t$

$HRM^{t} =$ households in year $t$
Available disaggregations

Province
Frequency

Annual
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Indicator calculated using a methodology harmonised across the central statistical bodies of the autonomous communities
Data last updated 2025/05/08
Metadata last updated 2025/06/13

Source 1

Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function
Organisation Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function
Periodicity Annual
Link to data source Broadband Coverage in Spain

This section provides more information about the United Nations indicator or the European Union Sustainable Development Indicator, such as its rationale, international results, metadata, and other relevant statistics.

Rationale

The percentage of the population covered by a mobile cellular network can be considered as a minimum indicator for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) access since it provides people with the possibility to subscribe to and use mobile-cellular services to communicate.

Over the last decade, mobilecellular networks have expanded rapidly and helped overcome very basic infrastructure barriers that existed when fixed-telephone networks – often limited to urban and highly populated areas - were the dominant telecommunication infrastructure.

While 2G (narrowband) mobile-cellular networks offer limited (and mainly voice-based) services, higherspeed networks (3G and LTE and above) provide increasingly high-speed, reliable and high-quality access to the Internet and its increasing amount of information, content, services, and applications.

Mobile networks are therefore essential to overcoming infrastructure barriers, helping people join the information society and benefit from the potential of ICTs, in particular in least developed countries.

The indicator highlights the importance of mobile networks in providing basic, as well as advanced communication services and will help design targeted policies to overcome remaining infrastructure barriers, and address the digital divide. Many governments track this indicator and have set specific targets in terms of the mobile population coverage (by technology) that operators must achieve.

Source: United Nations Statistics Division
Comparability between the available indicator and the UN indicator

The available indicator complies with United Nations metadata.
International results

Proportion of population covered by at least a 4G mobile network (%) IT_MOB_4GNTWK UNSTATS
Link to UN metadata

Metadata 9-c-1.pdf
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