Is there a weak internet in your parish? ANACOM announced today that it has agreed (in draft resolution) to renew, until April 21, 2033, the rights to use the frequencies in the 900MHz and 1800MHz bands assigned to Vodafone and MEO.

In addition, ANACOM imposes additional obligations for Internet coverage for 100 Low Density Areas. Find out what they are.

Service providers will have to provide mobile broadband service with a minimum throughput of 100 Mbps, covering at least 90% of the population. This is ANACOM’s “requirement”, which states that investments made by operators have not given equal priority to different regions of the country.

Of these 100 parishes, MEO will have to cover 56 parishes and Vodafone will have to cover 44 parishes. The difference in number is related to the amount of spectrum allocated to each of these operators.

Vodafone and MEO must, within one year, from the date of approval of the agreement and / or as a result of the withdrawal, comply with the Internet coverage obligations of the 100 parishes.

List of 100 parishes will have internet

This decision allows ANACOM, which is now subject to a pre-hearing and public consultation for a period of 20 working days, to guarantee the regulatory goals that this body should strive to achieve, i.e. those related to ensuring effective and efficient use of the spectrum, promoting competition in retail markets, encouraging investment and avoiding disruptions to the continuity Providing telecommunications services.

MEO and Vodafone must, by June 30, 2022, agree with each other to distribute the parishes that they will have to ensure its coverage on the Internet and inform ANACOM of the decision reached. Not every operator can choose a parish in which they already have specific coverage obligations arising from multi-scale auction or renewal of 2.1 GHz DUFs. It should be noted that in the first case, ANACOM imposed additional coverage for 480 parishes and in the second case more than 588 parishes.