The decision comes after the country’s communications regulator CNMC said last year it was looking at opening up the network to its competitors.
"The CNMC's proposal to open up fibre optic across most of the country, obliges a future review of the investments and where they will be," according to a Telefónica internal report seen by Reuters.
The new rules will require Telefónica to open up its fibre-optic network in all of Spain, apart from nine cities, to ensure competition and promote investment in next-generation access networks.
According to the document, Telefónica has given instructions to provisionally slow down its fibre roll-out from the 5.5 million households it intended to connect this year to 3.6 million, or around 300,000 households per month.
