The survey carried out aimed to understand how the different means of mobile Internet access are currently used in Portugal. Respondents were also asked about their usage of fixed Internet to assess if the usage of mobile Internet has any influence on its usage via mobile accesses.
The platforms or means for Internet access considered in this study were: a) USB modem (stick); b) smartphone-type mobile phone and; c) fixed access.
The survey was designed by ANACOM and the interviews were carried out by Spirituc - Investigação Aplicada, Lda. (hereunder, Spirituc), using the CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing) method for mobile and fixed phones, between 14 July and 20 July 2011, on Portuguese residents aged 15 and over.
In the case of contacts made to fixed phones, the respondents were chosen based on the person in the household who had the most recent birthday, so as to choose the respondent in the most random way possible. Since the respondent may not be the person responsible for paying for the access or have any power of decision with respect to its subscription, there may be biased answers to questions related to prices (such as the satisfaction with the price paid) or the reasons for choosing/replacing the provider, or for replacing one Internet access means for another. However, should this bias exist, it is probably not significant since the person responding to the survey used the access and was aware of its characteristics and why it is in the household.
In relation to each means of access questions were asked about how the respondent used that specific Internet access and not only about the most used access. This made it possible to ascertain how the usage of more than one Internet access influences the way the respondent uses each of them.
The aim was to obtain a minimum of 1067 valid answers to the survey for each Internet access group (fixed Internet, Internet via USB modem, and Internet by mobile phone).
When a respondent had more than one means of Internet access, each was accounted for in each group, and therefore the total sample was 3076 responses, with the following distribution:
a) 2 377 respondents with fixed Internet;
b) 1 368 respondents with Internet via USB modem;
c) 1 068 respondents with Internet via mobile phone.
These results were weighted so as to obtain a representative sample of the Portuguese residents aged 15 and over with fixed Internet, Internet via USB modem, and Internet via mobile phone, considering the gender, age group, and region 1 of the country, according to the available information related to each of those means of access to the Internet.
Although it was planned to conduct the survey with a random selection of respondents for the three samples, the difficulty in obtaining users with Internet access via mobile phone prevented the sample from being random 2 after a certain stage. It should be noted that figures from the European Commission show that only 4 out of 100 Portuguese inhabitants use the mobile phone to access the Internet, against an average of 8 out of 100 inhabitants of the twenty-seven European Union countries.
Finally, recognizing that according to the latest analysis on relevant markets conducted by ICP-ANACOM (in 2009) the fixed broadband market is geographically different in terms of the existing competition 3, whenever it was appropriate the results of this survey were also analyzed on this basis. For this, the sample was broken down into municipalities with at least one competitive exchange area 4, these municipalities being designated 'C', and municipalities without any competitive exchange area, designated 'NC'.
Breaking down the sample by type of Internet access and competitive exchange area indicator shows that there are more fixed access and mobile phone users in the municipalities with competitive exchange areas, or 'C' municipalities, than UBS modem users - about 75% in the first case and about 66% by USB modem.
This result can have different interpretations. For example, it can partially result from the e.Iniciativas (e-Initiatives) programme having had a higher subscription rate in the inland municipalities, where competition is usually more limited - see the results of ICP-ANACOM's study on the impact and subscription of e.Iniciativas (ICP-ANACOM, 2010). It also suggests that when there is competition, it seems to be stronger in terms of fixed broadband than in terms of USB modem mobile broadband.
1 The country's regions were broken down as follows: Greater Lisbon, Greater Porto, North Coast, Centre Coast, North Interior, South, Madeira and Azores.
2 Although it is not a random sample, this has no influence in the result obtained since the intention is to analyze the form of usage of Internet accesses and not to obtain the subscription rates for each means of access.
3 See ANACOM's determination of 14 January 2009, ''Definition of product and geographic markets, SMP assessments and imposition, maintenance, alteration or removal of regulatory obligations'' available at Markets for wholesale network infrastructure access at a fixed location and broadband accesshttps://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=814541.
4 Competitive exchange areas are ''areas covered by exchanges where there is at least one co-installed operator (LLU) and at least one cable network operator and where the percentage of households cabled by the main operators is greater than 60%.''
