At the end of last year, 2.4 million Portuguese were using mobile broadband connections, a number that exceeds that of connections using fixed network technologies, 1.63 million, according to Anacom’s accounts that collect operator data.
The regulator’s data shows not only the increase in the number of mobile broadband connections – 13 percent more than in the previous quarter and 63 percent more than in the same period last year, but also a significant increase in the number of active customers, in the universe of existing customers. At the end of the year, 1,161 million users were actually using their mobile broadband connection, 75.9 percent more than in the same quarter last year.
More active customers means more data traffic on the mobile network, 9% more than the previous quarter, showing the figures, in comparison with the third quarter of 2008. In the technologies of fixed Internet access, the increase was lower and reached only 2, 1 percent, to which the addition of 39 thousand new customers contributed in the quarter.
Anacom’s figures also show that the number of dial-up accesses, including the total value of fixed network subscribers, continues to fall and at the end of December totaled 41 thousand calls, 4,500 less than at the end of September. The most relevant broadband technology, on the other hand, remains ADSL, which represents more than half of accesses (58 percent).
