The Government has established a set of exceptional and temporary measures related to the epidemiological situation of the novel COVID-19, namely by means of Decree-Law 10-D/2020, of 23 March https://dre.pt/application/file/a/130606978. This statute identifies the electronic communications services that should be considered critical as well as the customers deemed to have priority, including measures to prioritise the resolution of faults and disruption for those customers, and lays down a set of exceptional and urgent measures to be adopted by companies that offer publicly available electronic communications networks and services to ensure the continuity of those services. It also establishes measures to suspend and simplify certain legal and regulatory obligations, inter alia regarding compliance with quality of service parameters.
Under this statute, temporary access to spectrum resources was facilitated through the granting of an exemption from the obligation of temporary licensing of a radio station or network (and, consequently, the application of the corresponding fee).
In this context, Dense Air Portugal and NOS previously coordinated with ANACOM the additional uses that they intend to make of spectrum until the measures of prevention, containment, mitigation and treatment of the epidemiological infection of SARS-Cov2 and the COVID-19 disease cease, as determined by the national public health authority (see Article 12 of the aforementioned statute). With these uses, these operators intend to provide services to priority customers and support mobile networks, in order to respond with high quality services to the increase in traffic resulting from the exceptional circumstances that the country is currently experiencing.
This extraordinary use (during the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic) shall not result in any binding commitment by ANACOM or any legally protected right, expectation or interest for those operators in relation to the future use of the spectrum concerned, 2.1 GHz and 2.6 GHz, which form part of the basket of spectrum that will be allocated in the next spectrum allocation auction procedure, together with the 700 MHz band, and other bands.
Prior coordination with ANACOM makes it possible to prevent and promptly resolve any harmful interference in other networks and services that deserve protection, from the outset those that fall under Decree-Law 10-D/2020, of 23 March, as a result of which ANACOM alerts other interested parties to the importance of establishing prior contact with this Authority.