In the third quarter of 2010, the total set of main telephone accesses installed at customer request was reported at around 4.4 million accesses – corresponding to a penetration of 41.1 accesses per 100 inhabitants – 0.9% more than in the previous quarter and 5% more than in the third quarter of 2009.
This growth was driven above all by “other accesses”, which grew 52.1%, including VoIP accesses, which grew by 58%. Accesses based on GSM/UMT technology grew by 7.5%. New subscriptions to Multiple Play offers also made a contribution.
In this quarter, there were around 32 thousand installed payphones, with a decline seen of 1% over the previous quarter and a year-on-year decline of 5%.
During the period being reported, Grupo PT was responsible for 59.7% of all accesses installed at customer request, 0.8 percentage points less than at the end of the previous quarter and 4.3 percentage points less than a year earlier.
There were around 3.5 million fixed telephone service customers using direct access, an increase of 1.3% on the previous quarter and an increase of 7% on the same quarter of 2009. This trend was significantly driven by packaged offers which combine fixed telephone and cable television and/or Internet as well as by offers from alternative providers based on cable TV networks.
The number of indirect access customers using operator pre-selection fell counter to this trend by 4.2% to 126 thousand, the lowest level since 2001. Compared to the same period of the previous year, the number of pre-selection customers fell by 20%.
The same trend is reported with respect to nomadic VoIP customers, and at the end of 3Q10 there were around 106 thousand active customers.
In this quarter, Grupo PT’s share of direct access customers saw a further decline of 0.8 percentage points over the previous quarter and 4 percentage points over the same quarter of 2009. This drop in the share of direct access customers results essentially from new offers based on access technologies distinct from the traditional Fixed Telephone Service, especially bundled offers.
Total voice traffic originating on the fixed network during 3Q10 totalled around 1.9 billion minutes and 573 million calls, representing a fall of 4.5% and 4.6% respectively. Year-on-year, an increase of 0.2% was reported in the volume of minutes.
Looking at the nomadic VoIP service, it is reported that, despite the decline seen in the number of active customers, the traffic associated with this service increased compared to the previous quarter, both in terms of calls and in terms of minutes.
Looking at indirect access, 7.6% of all voice minutes were originated using this type of access, 0.4 percentage points less than in the previous quarter and 2.1 percentage points below the value reported for the third quarter of 2009.
Of the total of voice calls made in the first quarter of this year, 10.7% were made using indirect access, 1.8 percentage points below that reported in the same quarter of the previous year.
During the quarter being reported, the FTS voice traffic share of Grupo PT was reported at 60.9%, an increase of 0.3 percentage points over the previous quarter.
Consult:
- Fixed Telephone Service - 3rd quarter 2010 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1064860
