Internet in Portugal

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ADSL service has been available in Portugal since 2000, however it wasn't until 2002 that the service started to see wide acceptance from the general public, mainly due to increased competition from service providers, which helped to level prices. Market penetration in Portugal is around 30% although Portugal has the distinction of being one of the few European countries to have coverage in virtually the entire national territory.

There are several service providers offering ADSL service in Portugal, to both the residential and the professional market. The majority of the residential market is split between the 2 larger operators: Portugal Telecom and Sonaecom.

Portugal Telecom

A former monopoly, Portugal Telecom is still the largest telecommunications company in the country today. Due to their previous monopoly status their landline infrastructure covers all of the national territory, making them the only operator that can offer direct service anywhere in the country. Portugal Telecom uses different brands to segment their ADSL service, including SAPO for the residential market and Telepac for the small business market, among others. In November 2006 Portugal Telecom announced their ADSL2+ service, adding a 24 Mbit/s speed grade to their market offer and effectively catching up to competitor SonaeCom that had been offering ADSL2+ speed grades for several months.

Sonaecom

Sonaecom started operations in 1999, soon after the government opened the telecommunications market to competition. The company started by renting Portugal Telecom's lines in order to offer their voice service to customers, but soon started laying their own infrastructure and can now offer direct service in the main metropolitan areas. Sonaecom also uses different brands to segment their ADSL offer, these include Clix for the residential market and Novis for the professional market. Taking advantage of the increased bandwidth provided by their ADSL2+ network, Sonaecom announced in June 2006 the launch of their IPTV service, dubbed SmarTV, enabling the company to offer the so called Triple Play service to customers in select areas.

Other ADSL operators in Portugal

Cable service providers

[edit] External links

Portugal Telecom

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