Andorra Telecom's Universal 100 Mbps Fibre Mandate — From Copper Shutdown to a 10 Gbps National Network

Andorra Telecom, the Pyrenean microstate's sole state-owned telecom operator, began replacing its copper network with fibre in 2008 under a contract with Prysmian Cables & Systems, targeting full coverage of the country's roughly 35,000 homes and business premises. A government decree of 12 January 2011 went further, establishing a 100 Mbps fibre connection as a "universal service" that Andorra Telecom must supply to any household in the country's seven parishes at a single, government-approved price — an early example of a country legislating a minimum broadband floor rather than leaving rural areas to market forces.
The rollout proved fast for a country of just 468 km²: ADSL was discontinued in 2014 and Andorra Telecom retired its remaining copper telephony lines entirely in December 2016. Subsequent upgrades — a 2017–18 GPON overhaul with Huawei and a further €4 million investment completed in late 2025 — raised nationwide minimum speeds to 500 Mbps and network capacity to 10 Gbps, with top residential tiers now reaching 2 Gbps. By 2023, DataReportal recorded 93.9% internet penetration among Andorra's roughly 80,000 residents.
The achievement rests on conditions that are hard to replicate elsewhere: a small, wealthy, geographically compact population served by a single state monopoly with no competing ISPs, operating outside the EU's telecoms-competition regime. Andorra Telecom's own leadership has acknowledged that residential prices, while government-capped, run higher than in nearby French and Spanish cities — the trade-off the country has made for guaranteed universal coverage.

Read the full analysis: https://www.huawei.com/en/news/2017/3/andorratelecom-huawei-ultra-broadband-ftth-network