The new fixed telephone service providers have increased their market share, as measured in conversation minutes, from 8.1% to 10% between the third and fourth quarters of 2001, reveals data compiled by the Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (ANACOM). This figure includes all types of voice calls between fixed telephones: local, regional, intercity and international.
The main instrument of market penetration for these providers continues to be international traffic. In the fourth quarter of 2001, new providers routed 27.2% of traffic destined abroad, as measured in minutes, compared with 19.7% in the third quarter of 2001.
In terms of national connections, including local, regional and intercity voice calls between fixed telephones, the penetration of new providers is significantly lower - 9.4% of all conversation minutes - but higher than the percentage recorded in the third quarter: 7.6%.
Direct access represented 92% of all traffic routed during the period in question, as measured in minutes. This type of access is more prevalent in national calls (92.6%) as compared to international calls (75,5%).
During the last quarter of 2001, around 5 billion conversation minutes of national calls and outgoing calls abroad were routed. This level of conversation minutes corresponds to a 5.1% increase in comparison with the previous quarter.
In the same period, the number of principal accesses rose to 4.4 million, 0.6% higher than the level in the third quarter of 2001, indicating a trend towards reducing the number of analogue accesses (0.3%) and increasing the number of digital accesses (5,1%).
As a result, the penetration rate of fixed accesses stood at 42.6 accesses per 100 inhabitants.
Of the total number of installed accesses (direct access) 97.8% were commercialised by PT Comunicações in the fourth quarter of 2001. The remainder - 2,2% - corresponds to accesses commercialised by the other providers.
Copperpair, fibre optics and cable were the main access infrastructures used, representing 99.9% of all accesses. The remaining accesses were supported by FWA - Fixed Wireless Access.
Within the accesses provided by the new providers, 94.4% were supported by copper, fibre optics and cable infrastructures and the other 5.6% by FWA.
At the end of the fourth quarter, there were 29 licensed fixed telephone service providers, of which 16 were in activity.
Within the universe of providers in activity, 9 provide direct and indirect access, 2 solely provide direct access traffic and 5 solely provide indirect access traffic.
