At the end of 2005 the number of broadband Internet customers in Portugal reached 1.212 million, an increase of 43% compared to 2004 and 7.1% compared to the third quarter of 2005. Broadband customers now make up the vast majority of Internet access customers - 82% of a total of 1.483 million customers.
Broadband access with ADSL accounted for 698 thousand customers, while 512 thousand used cable modem. The number of customers with dedicated access reached 3 thousand.
These figure point to the strengthening of ADSL's predominance over cable, given that it already represents the majority of broadband access (58%), while in the final quarter 71% of all new broadband connections were ADSL.
Of the 1.483 million Internet access customers, 1.254 million were residential customers, an increase of 17.4% compared to the end of 2004. Of these around one million used broadband.
In the last quarter of 2005, ADSL access also came to be the preferred means of Internet access for the residential segment, with 503 thousand customers or 50.3% of the total. Access through cable modem represented 49.7% of the residential total, with 498 thousand customers.
In the non-residential segment there were around 228 thousand clients, a year-on-year rise of 43.5%.
Likewise ADSL continues to be the main means of Internet access in this segment. At the end of 2005 there were 194 thousand non-residential customers with ADSL, compared to 17 thousand using dial-up, 14 thousand using cable modem and around 2,800 with dedicated circuit access.
PT Group's share of broadband customers at the end of 2005 stood at 77%, down 4.2% compared to the same quarter of the previous year and down 1.6% on the previous quarter. This loss of share was seen most of all in ADSL where PT Group's share fell by 7.2% compared to the previous year and 1.5 compared to the previous quarter to 83.9%
PT Group's share also fell in respect to cable modem access, to 67.8% from 71.8% the year before, and by 2% compared to the previous quarter.
At the end of 2005 the rate of broadband penetration, in terms of total number of customers per population, stood at 11.5%, a 3.4% rise on 2004. The rate of ADSL penetration rose to 6.6% in 2005 from 4% in 2004. The cable modem rate also rose, to 4.9% in 2005 from 4% the previous year.
2 Mbps price compares well to rest of Europe
According to a comparison study carried out by ANACOM in November 2005, the prices found in Portugal for 2 Mbps Internet access are not higher than the European average. It was found that the majority of offers from alternative operators ranged between 18 and 26 Euros (excluding VAT), while the incumbent had prices close to 29 Euros (excluding VAT).
The regulator chose to base its comparison on 2Mbps, as this is the most common connection speed used in Portugal. In fact 50% of the wholesale offer made available by the incumbant operator was represented by 2 Mbps connections.
Consult:
- Postal services https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=277884
