Upon determination of the Instituto das Comunicações de Portugal (ICP), the Unbundling of the Local Loop (ULL) has been brought forward to 1 January 2001. This service provision consists in opening the local loop of Portugal Telecom's fixed infrastructure to the other Fixed Telephone Service (FTS) providers. Thus, as from said date, the other operators may begin installing their equipment, and subsequently, launch commercial services offering direct access to the end consumer, without having to install their own local network infrastructures.
With this determination, taken subsequent to the public survey on ULL, and within a favourable scenario at a Community level, the liberalisation of the Portuguese telecommunications market has come full circle; a market which in terms of fixed communications has already been open to competition since January 2000. Thus, the range of choices available to the end consumer grows wider in tandem with all the technically admissible possibilities, including wide band technologies supported on the fixed network of the historic operator.
Therefore, as an entity with significant market power in the market for fixed telephone networks, Portugal Telecom must submit a proposed Reference Offer for Access to the Local Loop to ICP, up until 30 November.
Said proposal will subsequently be analysed by the Instituto das Comunicações de Portugal and must lead to PT's publishing the respective offer up until the end of the current year.
ULL is not to be confused with the provision of fixed telephony services in indirect access, open since 1 January 2000, by means of a call-by-call selection or the pre-selection of a provider, by using the 10xy identification codes. One should bear in mind, that this means of access is presently open to long-distance national and international communications, as well as to fixed-mobile connections. As from 1 January 2001, it will also be open to local and regional connections.
Related information on ANACOM's website:
- Local Loop Unbundling https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=3007
