Portugal's communications regulator has imposed strict targets on MEO, NOS and Vodafone to widen their coverage for mobile broadband.
The National Communications Authority (ANACOM) decided to impose additional obligations on the three service providers to push forward the eventual plan to have national coverage.
As the operator licenses were due for renewal for another 15 years, ANACOM has acted to have coverage extended to a further 588 named parishes which currently are without mobile broadband.
The aim of the measure, "is to bring mobile broadband to more people in areas where coverage would be more difficult to achieve if the operators were working along strictly commercial lines," said the regulator.
The ANACOM decision states that each of the mobile operators should cover 196 parishes and they have a year to report back that the job is done. The operators can choose between themselves who does which new area. If the operators can’t decide, the regulator will decide for them.
This will not happen overnight though as the license renewals for the mobile operators tdo not start running until 2018, so they have a year from that date to ensure that all the named parishes are covered with mobile broadband.
The 4G auction gave ANACOM a chance to insist on mobile broadband coverage for 480 parishes and the 2018 renewal point at least gives everyone a date to work from.
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Vodafone Portugal has eliminated roaming fees in the EU for customers on its Red postpaid plan.
The basic Red plan now starts at €27.5 per month, up from €26.90 previously, and comes with unlimited calls and texts and 200 MB of data in Portugal (400 MB for first 12 months).
In the EU, customers have a 'fair use' of 15 days per year of free roaming from their standard monthly bundle, as well as a monthly cap on roaming of 200 minutes, 200 SMS and 200 MB.
This compares to a domestic fair use of 5,000 minutes or SMS to Vodafone networks and 2,000 minutes and SMS to other networks each month.
The offer is based on a 24-month contract. The amount of data on the Red plan can be increased to 1 GB for an extra €5 per month, and in a promotional offer until 31 March for new customers, Vodafone offers 2 GB for the same price of EUR 5. Normally 2 GB costs an extra €9.99, 3 GB €12.99 and 5 GB €14.99 per month.
Additional lines can also be added to the Red plan to share the bundle with family members, and it can also be combined with Vodafone's fixed-line packages.
Source: http://www.telecompaper.com
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