Half million broadband customers - end of 2003

The number of broadband Internet customers reached half a million last year, reveal data from the Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (ANACOM). Broadband, including cable and ADSL accesses, was the annual growth rate leader among the various kinds of Internet accesses; between the end of 2002 and the end of 2003 it grew by 92.7%.

Most broadband accesses are made via cable television networks, whose total was over 315,000 customers at the end of the last quarter of last year, 52.1% more than a year previously.

ADSL has grown rapidly for the past several quarters, and stood at more than 184,000 customers, for an increase of 254.5% between the end of 2002 and the end of 2003.

These growth rates enabled broadband to account for 6.9% of all Internet accesses registered in Portugal at the end of 2003. The remainder is mostly narrowband, specifically dial-up, which had 6.7 million accesses at the end of last year, the result of 36.8% growth over the same period of the previous year.

Given the commercial characteristics of this type of dial-up accesses, customers numbers may have been overestimated, as situations in which a user has recourse to more than one ISP are to be expected.

The number of customers of the ISPs for all access types - narrowband, broadband and dedicated accesses - was 7.2 million at the end of 2003, 36.9% more than one year previously.

Figures indicate that the penetration rate for Internet access service jumped from 49.6% to 69.3% between the ends of 2002 and 2003. The broadband access penetration rate, separated and for the same period, rose from 2.5% to 4.8%.

There were 52 registered entities authorised to provide Internet access service at the end of 2003, 25 of which were operational.

Consult:

• Postal services https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=277884