On 19 June 2015, the European Commission released its 19th implementation report, which provides an overview of the European market for electronic communications and of regulation in the European Union (EU) in 2013 and 2014.
In its coverage of Portugal, the report highlighted a number of developments, including:
- The number of subscribers to bundled commercial offers in Portugal increased in 2014. Operators have launched new offers, combining voice services (fixed and mobile), Internet and television. In 4th quarter 2014, there were 2.9 million subscribers to bundled offers in Portugal, particularly to offers with the fixed telephone service (FTS), the fixed broadband Internet access service (FBB) and subscription television service (STVS) - triple-play bundles - with 46.5% of subscribers. There was a substantial increase in quintuple-play offers (which also include the mobile telephone service (MTS) and the mobile broadband Internet access service), with 33.2% of subscribers. Penetration of bundled offers increased, with 71% of households reported as having a multiple-play bundle in 3rd quarter 2014.
- Investment in next generation access networks (NGA) continued through 2014, leading to their rapid development - most notably investment by two operators of STVS over optical fibre (MEO and Vodafone) with plans to extend coverage to 33% of households.
- The Digital Agenda for Portugal defined three goals on the development of broadband: i) broadband access for all by 2013; ii) access to fast broadband with 30 megabits per second (Mbps) for all by 2020; iii) access to ultra-fast broadband with 100 Mbps or more for at least 50% of households in 2020.
- In 2014, 47 decisions were adopted by ANACOM in the field of electronic communications; these referred to market regulation (4), universal service (6), contracts and the user information (2), systems and costing models (4), dispute settlement (1), access (2), spectrum (10), authorisations (6), numbering (6), ITED-ITUR (2), fees (4) and others (3).
- Measures were implemented on the liberalisation of spectrum use and the implementation of principles of service neutrality, spectrum trading and spectrum sharing, in line with the Radio spectrum policy programme (RSPP).
- In terms of rights of way and passive infrastructure, in December 2014, ANACOM signed a contract for the design, implementation and operation of the Centralised Information System (CIS) in line with Directive 2014/61/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 on measures to reduce the cost of deploying high-speed electronic communications networks. These follow up on ANACOM's previous measures on infrastructure-sharing, which have been recognised by the European Commission for their success and pioneering nature.
- The European 112 emergency number reported over 10 million (10.6 million) calls, of which 66.3% were false. This service provides caller location information, call answering in English and special access conditions for users with special needs.
- Number portability, especially for mobile services, has increased, with a total of 299,141 numbers ported in 2013 and 709,816 ported numbers in 2014.
- ANACOM adopted a series of regulatory measures related to net neutrality, such as the decision on the conditions in which offers of electronic communications services can be described as "unlimited" and the minimum content to be included in contracts, including restrictions on access to other services and levels of quality of service to which the customer is entitled.
Further information:
- 2015 - Complete Implementation Report http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=9990
- 2015 EU Report http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=9991
