Portugal (Country Regulation Overview)

Portugal was a late starter in the EU Telecoms liberalisation process, opening its markets at the beginning of 2000 - two years behind most other EU member states - becoming the second-last EU member to open its Telecoms market. This was the result of derogation granted by the EU, based on the country's low teledensity and the need for progress on retail tariff rebalancing.

The fixed market was fully liberalised on 1 January 2000. In the third quarter of 2005, 22 operators were authorised to operate Telecoms networks and 14 operators were commercially active.

In 1999, Anacom became one of the first regulators in Western Europe to issue licences for wireless local loop services.

In December 2003 Portugal implemented the new EU regulatory framework for telecommunications. During 2004, Anacom carried out a market analysis on markets 1-6, 8 and 9, and regulation has been implemented where required. In 2005, market analysis for markets 7, 10-14 and 16 was carried out (please refer to Appendix A for definitions of the 18 markets according to the European Commission). As of 26 October 2006 Anacom had yet to complete its market analysis for markets 15, 17 and 18.