Vodafone Spain (Zegona), MasOrange and Telefonica in possible RANco joint venture
In an interview with Expansion published on January 26, 2026, Zegona [1.] CEO Eamonn O’Hare revealed that Vodafone Spain, MasOrange and Telefonica have been holding talks on the possibility of joining their mobile networks together since late last year. “We are talking with Orange and Telefónica to create a RANco,” he said.
Note 1. Zegona owns 100% of Vodafone Spain.
However, Zegona was unable to give the potential joint venture its full attention due to demands of its ongoing fiber projects. Telefonica and Vodafone created their Fiberpass joint venture (JV) in 2025 and agreed to sell a 40% stake to AXA in November. Meanwhile, Vodafone and MasOrange brought in GIC as an investor in their PremiumFiber JV last summer.
Eamonn O’Hare, president and CEO of Zegona
“The whole team was so involved in the fibercos that we didn’t have the time or energy to thoroughly develop the project,” O’Hare told the Expansion. Instead, his staff focused on tying up the fiber optic projects and then took a break over the Christmas period, he explained. “And now we’re back with more energy.”
Why a JV rather than a merger of telcos: “Mergers and acquisitions are not a priority in Spain and the regulatory risk is very high,” he said. Zegona has a greater motivation to make the RANco a reality. “Today there are three companies…that manage three national mobile networks with exactly the same fixed costs, but Orange and Telefónica have twice as many customers as us,” O’Hare explained. “Therefore, our national mobile network is inefficient. Just as our fixed infrastructure was inefficient and unprofitable, [and] that’s why we powered the fibercos.”
“It would be easier to broker a deal with MasOrange to share the network in certain areas, so the synergies would be in urban areas. But we don’t have anything with Telefónica, so there it would all be synergies.” Telefonica already has a mobile network sharing deal in place with Vodafone in sparsely populated areas, and was rumoured to be in talks with the telco on a broader RANco arrangement this time last year.
As a result, a partnership with Telefonica would bring greater synergies as there are no existing arrangements in place in the mobile space, but any deal would be a more difficult deal to hammer out and it would be trickier to bring in an investor, O’Hare added. Zegona has three priorities in Spain: to align its valuation with those of its competitors; to boost its cash flow to €1 billion; and to develop a RANco. “As long as we are in the middle of that transformation, we have no interest in mergers and acquisitions,” he said. And in addition, “the regulatory obstacle is…too big.”
“Historically, these small businesses have grown and then tried to sell themselves to MásMóvil. But MásMóvil no longer buys. Neither do we or Telefónica,” O’Hare said. “No one is buying. So they… will just be devoured by us and by Digi, as in the Pac-Man game.”
Would Huawei network equipment be used in the proposed Spanish RanCo? Vodafone is the mobile operator with the largest network provided by Huawei. Orange is reducing its share, and Telefónica only uses Huawei in part of its core network in Spain and not at all in its radio network. If the Brussels Cybersecurity Act mandates the replacement of this Chinese equipment, what will Vodafone Spain (Zegona) do?
“If Europe is more aggressive on the Huawei issue , I suppose we should accelerate efforts to reduce the amount of Huawei equipment in the network… should we accelerate RANco for this reason? Officially, the answer is no.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
References:
https://www.expansion.com/empresas/tecnologia/2026/01/26/6973ab17468aebd1418b4590.html
SNS Telecom & IT: Private 5G Market Nears Mainstream With $5 Billion Surge
España hit with major telecom blackout after power outage April 28th
Orange Spain & Ericsson to build 5G Infrastructure for 3 High-Speed Rail Lines
Telefónica and Nokia partner to boost use of 5G SA network APIs
Telefónica launches 5G SA in >700 towns and cities in Spain
Telefónica – Nokia alliance for private mobile networks to accelerate digital transformation for enterprises in Latin America
Ericsson and O2 Telefónica demo Europe’s 1st Cloud RAN 5G mmWave FWA use case
Telecom and AI Status in the EU
