During the last few years, the Internet has undergone an exponential world-wide growth, both in terms of its number of users and the contents available or even in terms of the network's geographical coverage.
In Portugal, this situation is no different, and the dynamism which characterises the Information Society is extremely relevant.
This development has led to some significant changes over the last few months, especially with regard to the tariff structure, and free of charge services offering access to the Internet have emerged, where the user pays, in principle, only the component which relates to the fixed telephone service.
Free of charge services providing access to the Internet are frequently associated to the marketing of other services, in addition to the Internet access service. In certain cases, this range of services may also have features that are different from those of the other options.
Taking into consideration the fact that the diffusion of the free of charge service in Portugal occurred over the last few months of 1999 and that its full effects are not yet apparent, this new service was subject to a quantified analysis, during this stage. It is important to highlight that its development should be re-analysed within the framework of future studies on the subject. Therefore - for all the countries - the study considers only those services for which payment is charged in terms of their two components (FTS(ihttps://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=55129) and ISP(iihttps://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=55130) ).
Within this context, it is of special interest to analyse the costs related to access to the Internet in Portugal, within the framework of the other European countries. The study therefore compares the prices of accessing the Internet charged by Portuguese operators with those charged by different European operators.
The average total price of accessing the Internet in Portugal (price of telephone call and payment to ISP - Internet Service Provider) is PTE 241$, minus 8% as at December 1998, which is 26% below the average for the other analysed countries .
| Total costs of accessing the Internet for a monthly use of 20 hours (FTS(1)+ISP(2)) | |||
| FTS(1) | ISP(2) | Total | |
| Portugal | PTE 91.3 38% |
PTE 149.4 62% |
PTE 241 100% |
Portugal |
PTE 189.6 58% |
PTE 139.5 42% |
PTE 329 100% |
| Portugal in relation to the average w/o Portugal | -52% | +7% | -26% |
| 1 - Fixed Telephone Service: call with an average duration of 20 minutes, during off-peak period. 2 - Internet Service Provider: Minimum between fixed and variable tariff. The prices set out include VAT at the rates stated in Attachment 1. | |||
The relative position of Portuguese costs is basically down to the prices charged in Portugal for the fixed telephone service, which are 52% lower than the average for the other countries. The average price charged by
Again, in similarity with the study published in December 1998, owing to the strong heterogeneity of the existing price structures, the study takes into account options which are described throughout the text, in order to achieve a coherent comparison of the different services.
The study, once again in similarity with the previously published study, reveals the difficulties encountered in collecting exhaustive information for all the services offered by all the operators in each country. This study uses publicly available international statistics and information which is available on some webpages of the Internet.
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